The most important aspect of Dimmesdale's character is his role within the Puritan community. As a Puritan minister, he is supposed to be the highest example of the Puritan doctrine. Dimmesdale gives the best sermons in the colony because he understands sin so well and can empathize. This explains why the congregation adores him and considers him the pathway to God. Since he is a sincere believer, his affair with Hester creates a heavy burden on his shoulders. Privately, he acknowledges his guilt, but until he can publicly acknowledge it, he cannot begin to repent for it. The conflict between his role as the "perfect minister" and his hidden sin as an adulterer causes effects on his responsibilities and on him as a character in this novel. …show more content…
He often grasps his hand over his heart, as if it pains him. He starves himself, keeps late-night vigils, and whips himself, yet absolutely nothing makes him feel better. (pg.115) Dimmesdale even takes it has far as carving the letter "A" on his chest which stands for the word "adulterer". The fact that everyone portrays him as this "holy" man makes his guilt much worse. Seven years has passed, and he still does not have the courage to own up to his sinful act with Hester. Dimmesdale wants to confess his sin to the congregation, but he values his reputation as the minister more than he values himself as a human-being. It is not so long before he can keep hiding his guilty …show more content…
Through Dimmesdale's entire life, his life has been dedicated to God. He is perfect in performing his duties as the Puritan minister, but his sin affects him in this regard. He feels that he is a fraud and a hypocrite and is not fit to lead the people of the town to salvation which is a sign he is not of the elect. Later, he begins to believe it would be better to lose his place of power in the church than to continue hiding the truth. He tells Hester, "Be not silent from any mistaken pity and 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 heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin?"
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.
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.
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.
18th century’s perception of the Puritan Society was that Puritans were a zealous community of people that lived with strict moral standards which allowed them to live in perfect harmony. However, the truth is Puritans were overly zealous whose values created paranoia and intolerance for other views. Through the characters Dimmesdale and Chillingworth who are also falsely perceived, Hawthorne suggest they are representative of the dour living of Puritan society that is hidden by the puritan’s tranquil and utopian outlook.
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.
To the town, Dimmesdale appears to be perfectly righteous and is respected highly; while in reality, he is just as guilty as Hester. The hypocrisy of his character first begins to develop as he denies his own sinfulness
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...
1. What is the difference between a. and a. The sins that Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth committed had consequences on their lives. 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”
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
When a secret is hidden inside it can engulf and even destroy a person. Arthur Dimmesdale, a revered young minister in the town, demonstrates what happens to the soul. Dimmesdale, as it is later made known, commits the serious crime of adultery with a young married woman named Hester Prynne living in the Plymouth Colony. Hester is unwilling to reveal her partner in sin. Dimmesdale’s fear of persecution and humiliation forces him to keep his sin a secret. So he watches as Hester is placed before her peers on a platform in front of the whole town and is then called to speak to her and urge that she reveal her fellow adulterer. In essence, he is called upon to commit yet another sin, that of hypocrisy. Dimmesdale’s accumulated sins build inside of him, constantly afflicting his soul until it begins to affect him physically. Thinking himself a hypocrite, he tries to ease his conscience and requite his sin by scourging himself on the chest during the night, fasting for days on end and even climbing the same platform on which Hester began her humiliation.
That man who Hester loves so deeply, Mr. Dimmesdale also undergoes major changes due the sin he bears. In the beginning of the book we see this man’s weakness and unwillingness to confess sin even as he begs Hester the person he committed his sin with to come forth with her other parties name (p56). As The Scarlet Letter progresses we see Dimmesdale become weaker physically and his religious speeches become even stronger so that his congregation begins to revere him. For a large part of the novel Dimmesdale has been on a downward spiral in terms of mental and physical health thanks to a so-called friend who was issued to take care of Mr. Dimmesdale, then because of a talk with Hester he is revitalized and given the power to do something, which he could not for seven long years. At the end of the novel Dimmesdale is finally able to recognize his family in public and confess his sin before all releasing the sin he held so long hidden in his heart (p218, 219).
In the puritan society one is judged by what someone has done in the past or their role in society. Both Hester and Dimmesdale are judged by whom the puritan people think they are. For Hester, the first thing they do when they see her emerge from the doors of the jail is judge her by her looks. For instance the author explained her as, "...tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a large scale. She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which ,beside being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion was ladylike, too, after the manner of the feminine gentility of those days; characterized by a certain state and dignity" (Hawthorne 46). The women who judge her are viewed as gossipers and judging from jealousy and just out to hurt her. Hester never acts this way towards anyone and she is still viewed as a terrible sinner who should possible die because of a sin. Dimmesdale is viewed as a wise man, a great speaker, and someone to look up to. This is because he is the minister of the community which is highly respected in the puritan society. People viewed him with so much respect that when Dimmesdale admitted his crime, no one could believe it or even believed what they had seen. There were multiple thoughts of what had happened. By way of illustration, “...and the wonderful
Hawthorne could have written multiple other endings for the Scarlet Letter. He could have had Dimmesdale’s sin go unnoticed from the people and then write a tragic story that would take place in the boat they were to take to Europe or a marvelous story where Dimmesdale finally confronted his tempter in an epic battle. Hawthorne could have had Dimmesdale’s sin revealed to the public of New England, but not by his own will but by somebody else schemes like Chillingworth or Mistress Hibbins, who both knew the minister had been hiding something. He could have also had Dimmesdale's sin revealed, but the public reacting to this horrible truth in a more violent way, killing the last of the feeble spirit that remained in him, rather than remaining
Dimmesdale is the type of person that could be obsessed with themselves and only there needs. And once they need you to do something for you, they forget about there selves and only focus on you. In the book Dimmesdale doesn't confess his sin to the town, but Hester does which takes so much guilt off of her shoulders. Dimmesdale guilt just eats away at him and begins to give sever pain. Since he does not confess his sin, he and Hester are forced to meet in the forest.
Arthur Dimmesdale presented himself as an uncorrupted man by his social status. Inside he felt unworthy and corrupt form the sin he has committed. The town’s people looked up to Dimmesdale as a man who could commit no grand sin. “People say that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very seriously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.” (48). Little did they know that the scandal that Dimmesdale took to hear was the fornication that happened between Dimmesdale and adulteress Hester Prynne. His sinful ways was affecting his health greatly. “Some declared, that, if Mr. Dimmesdale were really going to die, it was cause enough, that the world was not worthy to be any longer trodden by his feet.” (106). The town’s people respected him so much so that they figured it was the world that is corrupt and not Dimmesdale.