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Analysis of The Scarlet Letter
Examples of transformation for Dimmesdale in the Scarlet Letter
Analysis of The Scarlet Letter
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In novels, characters usually change benefiting who they are. They show character development. Character development shows how a character changes in a significant way. They begin to express who they really are instead of hiding behind who everyone else thinks they are. In the scarlet letter, there are people who showed character development. Not only was it the protagonist and the antagonist but also the other characters. One character that developed in the Scarlet Letter is Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister. However, he violates the Ten Commandments and commits one of the Cardinals/ Seven deadly Sins. The two Commandments he broke are, “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not bear false witness”. The
In the words of Alexander Pope 'To err is human.' Everybody makes mistakes. It is human nature. However, how one deals with the mistake is much more important than the mistake itself. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Dimmesdale and Danforth's sins have similar motives, but the characters have distinctly different methods of sin and resolution.
Cowardice creates self-destructive lies with which an individual must conceal themselves to delay the inevitable ramifications of their wickedness. The Bible states, “the cowardly…sexually immoral…idolaters and all liars [will] be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur” (NIV Revelations 21:8). Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, depicted a holy minister who hypocritically hid within cowardice despite the commands of the Biblical teaching in which he preached. Through reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s actions and motivations, cowardice was exemplified in order to prove the minister’s regret of adultery with a woman who was less significant to him than Hawthorne’s readers were led to believe. Arthur Dimmesdale’s weakness in hiding behind
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.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mr. Dimmesdale’s greatest fear is that the townspeople will find out about his sin of adultery with Hester Prynne. Mr. Dimmesdale fears that his soul could not take the shame of such a disclosure, as he is an important moral figure in society. However, in not confessing his sin to the public, he suffers through the guilt of his sin, a pain which is exacerbated by the tortures of Roger Chillingworth. Though he consistently chooses guilt over shame, Mr. Dimmesdale goes through a much more painful experience than Hester, who endured the public shame of the scarlet letter. Mr. Dimmesdale’s guilt is much more damaging to his soul than any shame that he might have endured.
Arthur Dimmesdale has been living with a giant secret for a long time. A secret that has been eating away at him. The main reason why Mr. Dimmesdale comes clean is because of all of the guilt that has built up over the years. When he decides to come clean, he addresses his mistakes and past in front of the public . The way he constructs his speech is full of somber and he pulls at the heartstrings of the people listening. He also structures his speech in the way that it is similar to music, “it breathed passion and pathos” (Hawthorne, 238). He uses emotion and tenderness to express his deep guilt. Likewise his use of pathos reaches out to his audience to make them understand where he is coming from and to ask for sympathy and forgiveness. Hester
A change is to make or become different. In the Scarlet Letter change is very evident in the main character Hester Prynne. Hester has undergone both physical and emotional changes that have made her more acceptable to the Puritan Society.
than hers, because while hers is an exposed sin. He continues to lie to himself
Dimmesdale is very hypocritical in how he handles the subject of his sin. For example, he says "Be not silent from any mistaken pity or tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he 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 he...
In this speech Dimmesdale is pleading for her to tell the name of the father, and fellow sinner, not just for the other leaders sake, but for his own. He is to weak minded to do it himself, and he believes it would be better to lose his place of power in the church than to "hide his guilty heart." Since he was not revealed, this is exactly what he does, hides his guilty heart.
People living in Boston, Massachusetts looked up to and respected Dimmesdale because he was a minister. One of his sins was his inability to publicly acknowledge that he committed adultery with Hester and that he is the father of Pearl, Hester’s daughter. However, adultery was not his biggest sin. His biggest sin is hypocrisy. In chapter ten, he speaks of the concealment of his sins, he says, “It may be that they are kept silent by the very constistution of their nature. Or-can we not suppose it-guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God’s glory and man’s welfare…no evil of the past be redeemed by better service (pg. 137).” While trying to conceal his sins, they take over his conscience and literally confess themselves during his acts of madness.
Everyone waits outside the prison doors because they can’t wait to see Hester, our main heroine, stand alone on the scaffolding. In her arms, she carries the infant of an unknown father. She sees her ex-husband in the crowd, and he looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. People come to witness this from all around the town, because they obviously have nothing better to do. They want to see her be branded like a cow. There is a gleaming, embroidered “A” on her chest, and only an “A” because she was too dumb to spell ‘adultery’. That, as well as a lack of thread. Dimmesdale, a poor, pasty Reverend, walks on top of the scaffolding with Hester in order to question her about the baby daddy. Hester, unlike Maury, does not admit the identity of the father. SPOILER ALERT: It is Dimmesdale, the Reverend.
Arthur Dimmesdale faces many challenges throughout the course of the novel, which causes him to evolve. Despite his many good qualities, he does not confess, while Hester Prynne gets publicly shamed for the sin they committed together. This adds up to the reader’s lack of empathy for Dimmesdale. He plays the role of “human frailty and sorrow.” The activities Hester and Dimmesdale engage in are completely unacceptable in the Puritan society. Arthur Dimmesdale is a Puritan minister, he is expected to be the representation of Puritan faith, so he refrains from disclosing the truth.
Change in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter In life, one may see that there are not many guarantees. However, the closest one may come to a guarantee is that almost anything in life can change. I believe that change can come in many forms. For instance, change can be a very easy and smooth transition that in the end is a positive thing. Then again there is change that can be tough, and quite difficult to deal with which often is labeled as a negative thing. However, the most significant type of change is one that makes an immediate impact on one¡¦s existence and, in the end, shapes the way things are done now and well into the future.
a. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl plan to leave Boston by boat with a crew that is going to England in four days.
Dimmesdale twisted the word of God and the Puritan beliefs into what he saw appropriatefor himself, which truly went against Christian belief. This religious doctrine was changed in his head as he still thought the he should teach the word of God. He doubted his beliefs due to his sin but still had hope of attaining salvation through faith and the sacrifice of Jesus. In Puritan society, the smallest of sins were punished very severely. Dimmesdale, himself, was a sinner yet only received punishment from himself. He did repent for his sins but within the strict rules of society he was still not forgiven of his sin. Dimmesdale is aware that he has not be fully forgive of his sin yet continues with his twisted version of religion. Due to his high