More handpicked essays just for you.
Critical analysis the scarlet letter
Full character analysis of hester prynne
How are the puritans portrayed in the scarlet letter
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
1.
The sins that Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth committed had consequences on their life. Hester’s sin, adultery, caused her to be outcast in the Puritan community and caused her to live constantly in persecution of others in her village as seen in the quote “...little Puritans… got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashion, in the mother and child, and therefore scorned them in their hearts, and not infrequently reviled them with their tongues” (Page 141, Hawthorn). Dimmesdale's sin, adultery, affected his ability to lift his life by causing him to be constantly ill as seen in the quote “It be the Soul’s disease” (Page 205, Hawthorn). Chillingworth sin, revenge, this controlled his life and everything he did causing him to become the ministers physician as shown in the quote “If that has not avenged me, I can do no
In the Scarlet Letter several of the characters names were symbolic and had meaning. Pearl’s name references her beauty to the beauty of a pearl as seen in the quote “expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white unimpassioned lustre” (page 133, Hawthorn) as well as how much it cost Hester to have pearl referencing how expensive Pearls are as see in the quote “as being of great price--purchased with all she had…” (page 133, Hawthorn).
Dimmesdale and Chillingworth names, however, have negative symbolism. Dimmesdale’s name references how dim he is to what is happening around and to him as well as to those around him as seen in the quote “i might have known it… I did know it!” (page 291, Hawthorn). Chillingworth’s name references how cold hearted and cruel he is to everyone specifically, Dimmesdale and Hester this is shown in the quote “Old Roger Chillingworth, too, had perceptions that were almost intuitive; and when the minister threw his startled eyes towards him, there the physician sat; his kind watchful sympathizing, but never intrusive friend.” (page 195,
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.
Dimmesdale. At first his expression had been calm, meditative, and scholar-like. "Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they [people of the town] had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him.'; (Chpt. 9, p. 155) While pretending to be Dimmesdale's trusted confidant and physician, Chillingworth is actually slaying him by means of medicine and mental torture.
[having] a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror? (135) at the same time. Hawthorne goes further beyond this description by comparing this sudden outburst of emotion to Satan?s ecstasy by saying that the only factor which ?distinguished [Chillingworth?s] ecstasy from Satan?s was the trait of wonder in it? (135). As the reader delves deeper into the book, we come to the conclusion that Dimmesdale is indeed the father of Pearl, the product of the horrendous sin consummated through Dimmesdale?s and Hester?s illicit affair. This point brings us back to Chillingworth?s reaction to realizing this earlier at the end of chapter ten. Although this shocking news explains why Chillingworth might have been angry or horrified, it does not clarify why Chillingworth did not attempt to murder or poison Dimmesdale whilst he had the chance, especially since the reader knows from a point made by Chillingworth earlier in the book, that after Chillingworth had sought out the man who had an affair with his Hester, he would have his long sought-after revenge (73).
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.
Chillingworth contributes to those of guilt and alienation. For example, Chillingworth expresses his own guilt through the ironic searching of Dimmesdale’s. “He had begun an investigation… with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous of truth… instead of human passions and wrongs inflicted upon himself,” (Hawthorne 121). It is conspicuous that Chillingworth, being engrossed in finding the truth of Dimmesdale and his adultery, which he observed through victimizing him, inflicted his own sin upon himself. However, Chillingworth does not only inflict guilt upon himself, but on Dimmesdale as well. The observable effects are “his inward trouble [which] 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,” (Hawthorne 136). These effects, which Dimmesdale puts blame on his inward trouble, or sin, is caused in part by the victimization of Chillingworth towards him. Hence, Chillingworth has altered Dimmesdale’s original, clergy-like practices to those that are a derivative of sin and guilt. A testament of inflicted alienation upon Dimmesdale is seen in evidence brought up prior, on page 128 of The Scarlet Letter, “… a bodily disease, which we look upon as a whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be
Both committed adultery but have suffered in different ways. Hester’s punishment composed of public shaming on the scaffold for all to behold, but afterwards she did not suffer from guilt because she confessed her sin, unlike Dimmesdale, who did not confess, but rather let his sin become the “black secret of his soul” (170), as he hid his vile secret and became described as the “worst of sinners” (170). He leads everyone to believe of his holiness as a minister and conceals the, “Remorseful hypocrite that he was [is]” (171). Hester, a sinner too, however, does not lie about how she lives and therefore, does not suffer a great torment in her soul. While she stays healthy, people begin to see Hester’s Scarlet Letter turn into a different meaning, of able or angel, and they view her in a new light, of how she really lives. Dimmesdale however, becomes sickly and weak after “suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul” (167). He hides behind a false mask as he is described as possessing, “Brilliant particles of a halo in the air about his head” (300), and perceived as the most honorable man in New England. People do not see him as truly himself, but rather who he hides
In choosing to contain his deep sin as a secret, Mr. Dimmesdale suffered from a festering guilt that plagued him until his death. After Hester was sentenced with the punishment for her act of adultery, Mr. Dimmesdale remained silent in refusal to confess to his inclusion in the sin. Over time, feelings of remorse gnawed at Mr. Dimmesdale’s conscience and left him in a self loathing state for his own hypocrisy. Dimmesdale felt excessive guilt in allowing Hester to undergo the entirety of the ridicule and punishment alone while he maintained a positioned of respected and idolized authority, yet could not find it in his heart to expose the sin. Looking upon his situation with the Puritan perspective, Mr. Dimmesdale “…loved the truth and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore above all things else, he loathed his miserable self” (136). Mr. Dimmesdale felt he was living a lie for he, the very man who preached to the community about living a pure life, was living one tainted with...
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.
One of the various ways Chillingworth serves as the devil’s advocate is by being the antithesis of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the palpable Jesus figure of the narrative. Chillingworth keenly sets out to devastate Dimmesdale, as Hawthorne informs us when referring to Chillingworth's unearthing of Dimmesdale's secret, “All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving!” The capitalization of the words "Pitiless" and "Unforgiving" confirm that Chillingworth is Satan in human form. Symbolically, on an additional, more perceptible note, Chillingworth steals one of Dimmesdale's gloves and drops it on the scaffold in the middle of the town. The sexton returns it to Dimmesdale saying, "Satan...
Life is unpredictable, and through trial and error humanity learns how to respond to conflicts and learns how to benefit from mistakes. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a character who changes and gains knowledge from the trials he faces, but first he has to go through physical, spiritual, and emotional agony. In the midst of all the havoc, the young theologian is contaminated with evil but fortunately his character develops from fragile to powerful, and the transformation Dimmesdale undergoes contributes to the plot’s climax.
As a believing Puritan, Dimmesdale saw himself as “predestined'; for damnation. Hawthorne explained how the poor man “kept silent by the very constitution of [his] nature.'; Dimmesdale wanted to be with Hester, but he was weak. Hawthorne spoke about Dimmesdale’s bloody scourge in his closet, and how he beat himself with it. Hawthorne seemed to suggest that Dimmesdale’s “real existence on [earth] was the anguish of his inmost soul.'; Chillingsworth was a leech of evil, and Dimmesdale was his host. Chillingsworth continuously tried to get a confession from Dimmesdale: “No-not to [you]-an earthly physician.'; Chillingsworth sin was by far the greatest, as Dimmesdale stated: “That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of the human heart.'; This being the “unpardonable sin.';
In the book, Chillingworth is a physician who had been captured by Native Americans sometime ago and subsequently released by them into Boston, Massachusetts, who was strictly a Puritan settlement at the time. In the years of his imprisonment by the Indians, he was taught many native herbs and plants of the New World, and their uses on the human body. Through this, he entered Boston as a physician, known to have "gathered herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one acquainted with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes." ( The Scarlet Letter , p. 120). Chillingworth had the knowledge of a particular drug, Atropine, which caused a sickness that closely resembled the condition of Dimmesdale. Chillingworth's motive for retribution to Dimmesdale for his adultery was very clear throughout the book, "There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine." (p. 80). Chillingworth's vengeful nature consumed his life and his only goal in life became the torment of Hester's adulterous husband, Dimmesdale. He was already showing signs of sickness, assumed by the reader to be attributed to his guilty conscience, and these were only amplified by the poisoning Chillingworth had inflicted upon him.
...h life because of that. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, faced Puritan torture under Chillingworth for the seven years without benefit of the release of guilt Hester had found by being in the public eye. Dimmesdale's only release from guilt was not the scaffold, but death itself.
Prynne’s husband, as the antagonist. Throughout the story, Chillingworth is depicted with a pernicious tone that give readers the idea that he is sinister and inimical. The author clarifies that Chillingworth strives for revenge against Hester and her lover, supported with various hostile events. Chillingworth is an icon of jealousy that was driven by love, and grief for a girl that betrayed and humiliated him with the act of adultery.
The Reverend Dimmesdale was another character that demonstrated the effects of sin. He committed the same offense that Hester committed, adultery. The difference between Dimmesdale and Hester was that Dimmesdale was not publicly punished for his crime while Hester was. Because of this, Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty. This feeling of guilt was so atrocious that it mentally and physically withered Dimmesdale, as he felt a very strong need to repent and cleanse his soul.