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Who Is Dimmesdale's Decay In The Scarlet Letter

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“And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system” (Hawthorne 174). In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale serves as the holiest person many people meet in their moral lifetime, and as the purest embodiment of God’s word. However, Dimmesdale has a wounding secret, a cancer, that tears his soul apart throughout his time in America. Dimmesdale falls prey to sin in a moment of passion with Hester, resulting in her condemnation by the townspeople, and the birth of their child, Pearl. For years, Dimmesdale’s life is defined by an internal conflict - his job demands his purity in the eye of the townspeople, but he desires the acceptance of herself that Hester achieves through her sin being made public. His …show more content…

Dimmesdale attempts to inform his congregation of his terrible sin: “He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity... They [his congregation] heard it all, and did but reverence him the more” (114). Dimmesdale truly reveals the fact of his unholiness, but fails to reference any details to his congregation. They paint him in an even holier light, and understand that only a true saint like Dimmesdale can call himself unholy in this way. However, Dimmesdale’s conscience is wrecked, because he is unable to reveal his sin, despite his multiple public attempts, and his anguish lingers. Similarly, Dimmesdale envies the closure that Hester’s punishment has brought her: “‘Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly open your bosom! Mine burns in secret!’” (151). In this dialogue, Dimmesdale articulates how differently their sin has been treated. In Hester’s case, public punishment initially brought disapproval, but eventually led her to charity and a general acceptance by members of the society. However, Dimmesdale’s strong conscience will not rest while his sin goes unpunished, leaving him with a burning desire for both penalty and disclosure. It is illustrated that Dimmesdale’s conscience is plagued after his sin, and this distress intensifies once he learns of Hester’s new place in society, as a matronly figure. Dimmesdale’s hiding of sin and internalization of guilt damages his conscience and tears apart his

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Who Is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

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Dimmesdale’s feelings were clearin that he explained that “it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart”(93). Dimmesdale said that once the extra sin of concealing the original sin is gone the load on the conscience lessens relieving the guilt and suffering. Hester did not have these additional burdens of guilt and suffering as Dimmesdale

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Dimmesdale's Sorrowful Nature In The Scarlet Letter

147 Words | 1 Pages

In order to reveal Dimmesdale's sorrowful nature. Hawthorne describes the different actions the poor minister takes in order to attempt to atone for his sins such as “[fasting]” and his use of a “bloody scourge” he genuinely believed that this would help to purify himself of his sins and to relieve the burden that he was forced to bear upon his shoulders, however his attempts to atone ultimately lead to even more torment. Hawthorne discloses this by describing Dimmesdale’s visions of the “herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister” this further reveals the utter anguish that he is going through another example of this is the vision of his mother “turning her face away as she passed by” the emotional

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Scarlet Letter By Arthur Dimmesdale

778 Words | 4 Pages

Dimmesdale presumes, “That my labours, and my sorrows, and my sins, and my pains, should shortly end with me, and what is earthly of them be buried in my grave, and the spiritual go with me to my eternal state, rather than that you should put your skill to the proof in my behalf.” As mentioned before, the truth always comes out and Dimmesdale is naive to think the townspeople can be deceived into having a perfect image of the Reverend. Arthur Dimmesdale is the image of a reverend on the path to heaven but, after the sins committed, becomes a man of hypocrisy. Dimmesdale believes dying with the sins would end the transgressions, however, the Reverend soon finds out that the soul and body of Dimmesdale would be tortured into revealing the

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How Does Dimmesdale Change Throughout The Scarlet Letter

588 Words | 3 Pages

“the magistrates are god fearing gentlemen ,but merciful church (Hawthorn p 49” Dimmesdale is an extremely religions man which makes committing a sin a suspenseful shocker. His job as a minister is to teach and encourage people to do good things in the eyes of god . He is an interpreter of the bible , DImmesdale's sin causes him to be a sinful man . “ the puritan of him which the devil claimed, and through he lost the win the rest (Hawthorne 19) . His religion is being weakened by the guilt of his secret sin.

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Who Is Arthur Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

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He starts punishing himself for committing such an act, and not confessing. He tries to make amends for his sins by physically mutilating himself with a whip, and depriving himself of food and sleep for several days at a time; “...inward trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh.” Chapter 11.

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Archetypes In Scarlet Letter

1099 Words | 5 Pages

Besides an eternal escape from the oppression of Puritan society, her thoughts of suicide indicate an isolation from Dimmesdale, a dignified minister she can never love again. Hester’s surrender to the societal judgment, nevertheless, is also the reason for her suffering. When Dimmesdale admits the adulterous sin he commits with Hester, he does not think about the societal judgment. The fanatical minister instead triumphantly praises God, declaring, “By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people!” (234).

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Arthur Dimmesdale's Suffering In Scarlet Letter

757 Words | 4 Pages

As a penance for his wrongdoing, Dimmesdale takes to a secret closet in which he brutally scourges his body, “laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much more the pitilessly because of that bitter laugh” (136). Dimmesdale’s self-torture proves to be his only outlet for his pent-up frustration and self-loathing. As a Puritan minister, Dimmesdale’s times spent brutalizing himself are his only times of complete truthfulness in his horrid life. In addition, Roger begins carving away at Dimmesdale’s morale “like a sexton delving into a grave, perhaps in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man’s bosom” (121). The minister’s closest thing to a friend skulks in secret as an evil creature, fueled by a vengeful rage and desire to destroy him.

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Integrity In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

764 Words | 4 Pages

In the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne was a character of high integrity. She lived by her own values and merits no matter what the consequence, and refused to give in to the abundance of temptations that were presented to her. The scarlet letter also provided lessons that Hester needed to learn in order to continue her development as a person. Men living by Dimmesdale’s standard, hiding the fact they have sinned and having to be pushed to the edge to confess, feel integrity takes a back seat to getting what you yearn for. For them, their moral code is only a guide, seldom

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Hester Prynne Feminist Analysis

841 Words | 4 Pages

Though Hester is married to Chilingworth who was much older than her, she falls in love with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a clergyman of the Puritan community who earns great respect and fame as a priest from the community through his sermons, who later discovered to be a real father of child and most importantly a sinner who never reveals his sin. Hester is shown as courageously strong woman than the man of author’s time. Hester knew that her punishment would be increased; she never disclosed her child’s father name. Hester is also shown as a stronger character than Dimmesdale, who lacked the confident to admit his sin publicly. He lived with the guilt by torturing himself mentally and physically and we see Dimmesdale is degrading with his inner hidden sin while Hester grows strong and become influential women (Hawthorne, 1850).

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Arthur Dimmesdale's Guilt Quotes

1158 Words | 5 Pages

Dimmesdale suffers differently from Hester, because while she “bore it all” to the townspeople (181), his fears forced him to hide his sin, living a life full of “nothing but despair” (177). Hester, though made a social pariah of the town, has a more honest and healthy way of dealing with her sin. Because Hester is forced to face her wrongdoings under the watchful eye of her Puritan neighbors, she did not have the same guilt of secrecy that Dimmesdale did. Dimmesdale, by hiding his sin, allows himself to become a captive to his guilt. The way that Dimmesdale dealt with his guilt was unhealthy for him, both mentally and physically.

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A Comparison Of Hester And Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

535 Words | 3 Pages

Hester has to deal with the public shaming of others, and is unable to fit in with most people ever again, while Dimmesdale must deal with internal conflict. At the beginning of the book, Hester is being publicly shamed for her sin of adultery. Her punishment for her sin is that she has “to wear a mark of shame”(16) on her body,

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What Are The Similarities Between The Crucible And The Scarlet Letter

992 Words | 4 Pages

Reverend Dimmesdale’s physical condition diminishes the longer he keeps his sin a secret. He feels so guilty, he tortures himself by fasting and whipping in addition to feeling like a hypocrite when his gives sermons. Reverend Dimmesdale expresses, “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!” (Hawthorne 107).

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The Scarlet Letter Dimmesdale's Transformation

523 Words | 3 Pages

Dimmesdale starts living with Chillingworth so the doctor can keep the feeble minister ‘healthy’; the doctor, reversely, tries to make Dimmesdale feel conflicted about his morals which leads to Dimmesdale obsessively whipping himself “...on his own shoulders” and“... fast[ing]...in order to purify [his] body… rigorously...until his knees trembled beneath him[self]...” (132). He is enveloped in his sin, and cannot escape it unless he tells the truth. In fact, Dimmesdale could not stop thinking about his sin which “...continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence [which] was the anguish in his inmost soul” (133).

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561 Words | 3 Pages

Both Dimmesdale and Hester commited the same sin of adultery, resulting in Pearl. However, because Hester confessed the sin early on, she had the rest of her life to try and change the purpose of her scarlet A to mean something more than just sin. Which she succeeds in, the people refused to interpret the scarlet letter for sin and instead for “Able.” Soon after, the people had almost forgotten what the original meaning of the scarlet letter was. On the contrary Dimmesdale doesn’t confess his sin and lives a terrible life of self-harming and guilt.

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Sin And The Chance Of Redemption In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

1029 Words | 5 Pages

Hester changed her attire to a plain, darkshade, with no designs, which corresponded to her emotions. There was nothing she could accomplish to reduce the pain of the guilt since the truth was known by everyone in her hometown. As time went on, Hester regained some purport in her town. The townspeople demanded Hester for her skills and soon she did not need to wear the scarlet letter anymore, but she thought she deserved it. Whether the sin was committed in secrecy or not, both Hester and Dimmesdale went through similar consequences.

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