The Character of Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter
In Hawthorne's classic, The Scarlet Letter, the pathetic, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is fully aware of the means by which he must liberate his soul from his grave sin. Yet, throughout the story his confession remains an impediment, constraining him, from then onwards, to a life of atonement. Reverend Dimmesdale attempts to divest himself of his guilt by revealing it to his parishioners during services, but somehow never manages to accomplish the task. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is clearly both a coward and a hypocrite
For the most part, Dimmesdale's story is one of a lonely man who has given into temptation and desire. His carnal craving is looked upon with ignominy. The matter is further convoluted by Hester's marriage, and his unwillingness to mar his reputation among the villagers as the faithful and innocent priest. He is now stranded at a crossroad, not knowing whether to confess or carry on a life of self-punishment. The sin begins to gnaw away at his sanity. As a form of penance he partakes in late night vigils, starvation, and self-mutilation. His acts of penance were severe and drained him of much of his life force. Finally becoming fed up with his prolonged misery, he walked unsteadily to the podium to expose his secret, but his confession was ambiguous and inconclusive, and people thought he was speaking about the sins of humanity.
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale has many opportunities to confess.
One of the very first moments available to Dimmesdale to confess was on the scaffolding in the beginning when Hester was publicly humiliated in front of the townspeople. Dimmesdale was preaching to her for hou...
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...can be rectified. Some sins are everlasting, and there are no shortcuts to salvation. Sometimes the weight of the sins must penetrate one's soul for eternity.
Works Cited and Consulted:
Baym, Nina. Introduction. The Scarlet Letter. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York City: Penguin Books USA, Inc. 1986.
Clendenning, John. "Nathaniel Hawthorne." The World Book Encyclopedia. 2000 ed.
Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. "The Scarlet Letter." The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed. Charles Wells Moulton. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publishing, 1959. 341-371.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Penguin Books USA Inc., 1986.
Smiles, Samuel. "The Scarlet Letter." The Critical Temper. Ed. Martin Tucker. New York City: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1962. 266.
In the book The Scarlet Letter, the character Reverend Dimmesdale, a very religious man, committed adultery, which was a sin in the Puritan community. Of course, this sin could not be committed alone. His partner was Hester Prynne. Hester was caught with the sinning only because she had a child named Pearl. Dimmesdale was broken down by Roger Chillinsworth, Hester Prynne’s real husband, and by his own self-guilt. Dimmesdale would later confess his sin and die on the scaffold. Dimmesdale was well known by the community and was looked up to by many religious people. But underneath his religious mask he is actually the worst sinner of them all. His sin was one of the greatest sins in a Puritan community. The sin would eat him alive from the inside out causing him to become weaker and weaker, until he could not stand it anymore. In a last show of strength he announces his sin to the world, but dies soon afterwards. In the beginning Dimmesdale is a weak, reserved man. Because of his sin his health regresses more and more as the book goes on, yet he tries to hide his sin beneath a religious mask. By the end of the book he comes forth and tells the truth, but because he had hidden the sin for so long he is unable to survive. Dimmesdale also adds suspense to the novel to keep the reader more interested in what Reverend Dimmesdale is hiding and his hidden secrets. Therefore Dimmesdale’s sin is the key focus of the book to keep the reader interested. Dimmesdale tries to cover up his sin by preaching to the town and becoming more committed to his preachings, but this only makes him feel guiltier. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale is described by these words; “His eloquence and religious fervor had already given earnest of high eminence in his profession.”(Hawthorne,44). This proves that the people of the town looked up to him because he acted very religious and he was the last person that anyone expected to sin. This is the reason that it was so hard for him to come out and tell the people the truth. Dimmesdale often tried to tell the people in a roundabout way when he said “…though he (Dimmesdale) were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.
Before Dimmesdale’s untimely death in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale committed the sins of adultery and lying. In order to keep his sins a secret, Dimmesdale spoke nothing of his involvement in the affair until it tore him apart from the inside out.When Dimmesdale tried to confess his sin to his congregation, they saw the confession as if it were part of his sermon. “He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood”. (Hawthorne 171) Instead of correcting their assumption, Dimmesdale went along with it, once more hiding his sinfulness. When Dimmesdale finally confessed his sin openly...
Seven years later, in the middle of the night, Dimmesdale finally admits to his sin while standing on the scaffold, just as Hester did so very long ago. It has been eating away at him all this time and feels that he also must be punished, though he cannot bring himself to confess publicly. He even brands his chest with the same letter "A" that Hester has been forced to wear upon her clothing to show that she is an adulterer.
Griswold, Rufus Wilmot. "The Scarlet Letter." The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors. Ed. Charles Wells Moulton. Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith Publishing, 1989. 341-371.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter many aspects of evil and sin are reflected through the characters Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth made their own choice of being a sinner and being evil. Therefore, that is what Hawthorne believed to be the definition of evil and sin; an individual chooses to do an action that is considered sinful. Although Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both portray evil and sin they portray it in two completely different forms. Dimmesdale is shown as being a secret sinner throughout the novel, but with the evil torturing that he receives from Chillingworth and himself it drives him to the point where he then becomes a public sinner. It is better for an individual to confess their sin than to bury it deep down.
Guiltiness possesses Reverend Dimmesdale. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale fails to come clean about his sin of fornication until moments before his death. Therefore, he struggles with his guilt throughout the entire book, almost until his death. Hester learns to cope with her scarlet “A,” but Dimmesdale cannot without confessing. When he does not confess, he becomes depressed and self-inflicts punishment on himself by carving an “A” into his chest by his heart, among other actions. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale suffers from his sin in the entire story until seconds before his death, when he absolves himself from all guilt.
Levin, Harry. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Harold Bloom: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. Print.
Every action reaps its consequences. This veracity is revealed in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, published by Ticknor, Reed, and Fields in 1850. Categorized into the genre of romance, The Scarlet Letter has a solemn, dark, mysterious, and almost eerie mood. The historical novel is set in the strict Puritan society of seventeenth century Boston, Massachusetts. When the book begins, the past action of adultery has already been committed. The story then follows the characters involved in the dirty deed and skillfully details their responses to the consequences.
Scharnhorst, Gary. The Critical Response to Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. New York: Greenwood, 1992.
Smiles, Samuel. "The Scarlet Letter." The Critical Temper. Ed. Martin Tucker. New York City: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1962. 266.
Smiles, Samuel. ""The Scarlet Letter."" The Critical Temper. Ed. Martin Tucker. New York City: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1962. 266.
The town is all out to witness the punishment of Hester Prynne some of the women are suggesting other punishments and the women are telling us about Hester and Dimmesdale. People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation." (Page 49) Reverend Dimmesdale is seen as a godly man. A man who does not commit sin and in his own mind at this point he feels fine and does not have any guilt. Dimmesdale at this point in the novel is seen as godly and throughout the novel is seen as godly even at the end after the last scaffold scene. Consequently enough, Dimmesdale is trying to convince Hester to reveal the man who has sinned along with her , so the man can be relieved of his guilt, some what ironic because he is the man who has sinned along side with her. "What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin? Heaven hath granted thee an open ignominy, that thereby thou mayest work out an open triumph over the evil within thee and the sorrow without. Take heed how thou deniest to him--who, perchance, hath not the courage to grasp it for himself--the bitter, but wholesome, cup that is now presented to thy lips!" (Page 65) This is the first scaffold scene Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is not showing any signs of guilt at this point, he is still fairly the same and has not began to inflict punishment on himself or so it appears. Dimmesdale in the first scaffold scene seems fairly normal and has not begun to transform himself but by the next time we see him at the scaffold he is taken a turn for the worst.
Sewall, Richard B. "The Scarlet Letter: Criticism." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 319-27.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘The Scarlet Letter’ was considered by many as the controversial novel of its time, given its themes of pride, sin and vengeance. It was also set in a time when very few were thinking about the equality of of men and women, but Hawthorne managed to bring gender-based inequality to light through the novel’s male-dominated Puritan setting and by reversing the gender roles of characters, such as Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale.
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