In the story Scarlet Letter we learn of Hester’s adultery. At the end of the book Hawthorne leaves us wondering was Hester,Dimmesdale,and Chillingworth forgiven or not? Hester Prynne was a mother who had a child with the priest Dimmesdale while still married to Chillingworth. Over time in the story Hester was forgiven but Chillingworth and Dimmesdale we’re not they still sinned. Hester had a child Pearl, while still married so she sinned adultery. Even though she sinned she had the child and kept from others the father to be known. For as Chillingworth and Dimmesdale they kept their secrets hidden while Hester faced her sins and faced the consequences of her actions. Hester is forgiven because she admits her sins and accepts all of her …show more content…
It was shown that Dimmesdale was not forgiven because when Hester asked for Dimmesdale's forgiveness he reacted to this with anger at first, blaming her for his torture instead of taking his own blame. Dimmesdale hides his sin and it consumes him so his health instantly falls. “Thou shalt forgive me!" cried Hester, flinging herself on the fallen leaves beside Dimmesdale. "Let God punish you! Thou shalt not forgive you said Dimmesdale.” Hester asked for his forgiveness but Dimmesdale blamed it on Hester but I takes 2 to have a kid.As for Chillingworth he also was not forgiven because he was just a leech, he becomes all about revenge and torture. But later Chillingworth pays for it. Chillingworth was not able to let this little thing go and he becomes an animal like Satan. Quoted in the story “Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion, neither am I fiend like, who have snatched a fiend’s office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may. Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man.” Chillingworth says that he has no power to forgive. Dimmesdale must suffer the fate of his lecherous ways. Chillingworth is completely unable to forgive or pardon, and he senses with latent rage that events are beginning to happen independently of his purposes. Chillingworth, in his way, has sold his own soul to the devil, essentially
Hester Prynne, the protagonist in the book The Scarlet Letter, has committed the sin of adultery, but learned to use that mistake as a form of strength. Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, sent her to America and was supposed to follow her, but never arrived in Boston. While Hester was waiting on Chillingworth, she had an affair with the town minister, Dimmesdale. As a result, Hester gave birth to a beautiful daughter and was forced to wear the scarlet
In “The Scarlet Letter,” the main character Hester get punished for adultery. In the beginning, she thought that her husband has died so she fell in love with Dimmesdale. However, her husband did not die and came back. Her husband, Chillingworth, later finds out that Hester has a secret lover. Therefore tried to find out who he is. At first Chillingworth does not reveal himself as Hester’s husband because she was being punished for adultery and he did not want to be ashamed. Later he tries to find out Hester’s secret lover by asking her but she will not tell him which makes him for desperate and angry. When he finds out that the secret lover is Dimmesdale, he finds out a secret about Dimmesdale.
Reflecting on these events, he turned his back on them when they stood on the scaffolding in the beginning, when he went to give Pearl a kiss on her forehead, and during the middle of the night after Hester and him talked. Unlike Dimmesdale, Chillingworth expresses no remorse whatsoever. Both men are well-educated as pastors and the other as doctors. These men seem to resemble both sides of the human society. The lack of faith is that Dimmesdale is a pastor and therefore must believe that God is in control and that his heavenly riches are better than anything else that can be offered to him.
Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister, has had an affair (which he chose to do) with Chillingworth’s wife and he can’t come to the point where he can confess his sin to the public. Therefore, he is a secret sinner. By being this secret sinner Dimmesdale begins to physically and mentally break down. He begins to emotionally and physically beat himself up, “he whipped himself, starved himself as an act of penance until his knees trembled beneath him, and stayed up all night having long vigils and sometimes having visions” (Hawthorne 96). Dimmesdale’s sin has caught up with him and it is affecting his present along with his future; his secret sin is eating him up. He is beating himself up because he has kept it locked inside of him when he should have openness about his sin. Hester has openness about the sin they committed together, and it is not eating her up like it is eating up Dimmesdale. Not only has Dimmesdale been beating himself up, literally, over hi...
Throughout the entire novel, every character except for Roger Chillingworth learned to forgive and cleared his or her heart of guilt. When the reverend showed his concern for the doctor just before his death he said, “may God forgive thee. Thou hast deeply sinned” (251). For example, Dimmesdale used some of his last words to forgive the doctor of his wrongdoing. Even though Chillingworth tortured and haunted him until the very end of his life, the reverend had strong enough character to want God to show mercy on the evildoer’s soul. Moreover, Dimmesdale was able to forgive Hester when he told her, “I do forgive you Hester” (191). Because of his high position of authority, Dimmesdale set high standards for his life, and that reflected in the way he handled personal relationships. Also, if Chillingworth had been more understanding towards Hester’s problem, he had a better chance at winning her love back. Finally, both Hester and her lover admitted their sin on the scaffold and sought forgiveness for their transgressions while Chillingworth never could admit he sinned.
As a respected physician, Chillingworth was “a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and li... ... middle of paper ... ... powerful grip over him, dies peacefully, and Chillingworth dies soon after. To plot revenge in any situation is harmful. Chillingworth’s plot of revenge brings the downfall of Dimmesdale, as well as his own.
Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all sinners, but they each handle their guilt in different ways. Hester tries to earn forgiveness by acts of service. Dimmesdale allows his guilt to build up to the point that it kills him. Chillingworth becomes obsessed with getting revenge. None of them receive the benefit of forgiveness. There is no true redemption, because there is no Savior in The Scarlet Letter. Without a merciful, loving, and gracious Savior, there can not be forgiveness of sin and reconciliation of broken relationships. This barren hopelessness leaves the characters desperate, alone, and in need of a Rescuer.
...rth's crimes against the Lord are more malevolent than those committed by Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale. Chillingworth's quest for revenge and truth leads him down a path of sin, and in the Puritan perspective, down the path to Hell.
Chillingworth continues to abuse and sin, despite knowing that murder and abuse are immense sins. Because he lived in a Puritan town and lived with a reverend, there is no way that he could remain ignorant about sin. He had to know that murder and abuse are morally and religiously wrong, yet he continues his actions. This behavior, "the hardening of the heart and willfully sinning against God and man" is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. This blasphemy is unforgivable in the eyes of God, and Chillingworth will face eternal sin. This consequence exhibits the immense severity of Chillingworth 's many sins.
While Hester tries to protect Dimmesdale by not giving the name of Pearl's father, she actually condemns him to a long road of suffering, self torture and disappointment. She does this by letting him keep the sin he committed in secret while he watches her being publicly punished. Chillingworth observes Dimmesdale's desire to confess, as well as his lack of willpower to do so. Dimmesdale rationalizes not confessing; all the while Chillingworth is torturing with constant reminders of his hypocrisy. Hester never voluntarily confesses to committing adultery, and never feels any remorse for it. Her public punishment comes not as a result of her having any contrition, but rather her apparent pregnancy. She stays in the town to be close to Dimmesdale, as a reader would find on page 84, "There dwelt...the feet of one with whom she deemed herself connected in a union..." She also stays in town to convince others, as well as herself, that she is actually regretful for her sin even though she knows in her heart she is not. She does this to appease her guilt. As Hawthorne puts it on page 84, "Here...had been the scene of her guilt...
The audience experiences Roger Chillingworth in a dramatic yet critical way to justify change and retribution in one character as the consequence of cloaking deep sin and secrets. When first introduced in the story, the narrator refers to Chillingworth as “known as a man of skill” (97) through the point of view of the people in the Puritan town of Salem. He is brought into the story when the town was in a time of need of a physician to help the sickly Reverend Dimmesdale; his arrival is described as an “opportune arrival” because God sent a “providential hand” to save the Reverend. Society views Chillingworth as though as “heaven had wrought an absolute miracle” (97). The narrator feels when Chillingworth arrives in Salem he is good and has no intention of harm of others. Perhaps if the crime of the story had not been committed he would have less sin and fewer devils like features. Although this view of Chillingworth changes quickly, it presents the thought of how Chillingworth is before sin destroys him. Quickly after Chillingworth discovers Dimmesdale’s secret, his features and his character begin to change. The narrator’s attitude changes drastically towards the character from altering his ideas of the kind and intelligent persona to an evil being by using phrases such as “haunted by Satan himself” (101). The narrator portrays the people of the town believing Chillingworth is taking over the ministers soul in the statement “the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor minister’s eyes” (102). Throughout the book, Chillingworth ages exceedingly and rapidly. At the very end of the story, the narrator reveals another change in Chillingworth’s character; he searches for redemption by leaving Pearl a fortune a “very considerable amount of property” (203). By doing this, it shows
In The Scarlet Letter, the sin of adultery had two major effects on its sinners. For Hester Prynne, the sin made her a stronger, more independent woman in society. She was able to overcome her punishment of wearing the letter and the guilt she was reminded of everyday. Hester believed that she committed a sin of passion, not principle, while Dimmesdale disagreed. He physically harmed himself to make up for the guilt he felt about Hester having to bear the burden put on her by society from their shared crime. He was also stuck in a rut between both the “sinner” and the “minister” that were fostered within him. While Hester lives a productive and moral life, Dimmesdale finally reveals the truth to the community. Tragically, he falls dead from all the anguish he had put himself through.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne committed adultery with the town’s most loved minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. During the Puritan era, marriage was sacred, and breaking the bond was punishable by death (Hawthorne 49). As fate would have it, only Hester was found out for her sin because of her pregnancy. Hester’s life was spared, but her sin forever changed her. Hester’s sin warped her interactions with society and her loved ones, altered her way of life, and ultimately changed her persona.
Throughout all the sinful things Hester Prynne has done, she still managed to obtain good qualities. Hester was an adulterer from the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester was looked down upon by the citizens of Boston because of the sin she and another person committed, but no one knew who her partner in crime was because she refused to release his name. Towards the very end of the story Hester’s accomplice confessed and left Hester and Pearl feeling joyous, because now they didn’t have to keep in a secret. Hester is a trustworthy, helpful, and brave woman throughout The Scarlet Letter.
Dimmesdale’s character arc throughout The Scarlet Letter revolves almost entirely around the fact that he is guilty over committing adultery with Hester Prynne, who is now viewed as Salem’s resident sinner.