The Scarlet Letter’s Friends Two Mendacious Men Although perceived as two utterly different men, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth share some remarkable similarities. Lying is one of these connections, as both men lie to one another concerning their connections to Hester and she conceals the secrets of their connections to her as well. Inquisitive as to whom Hester loved Chillingworth questions her, and she replies, “That thou shalt never know!” (86), so Chillingworth says to Hester “Breathe not, to any human soul, that thou dost ever call me husband!” (88), and she replies, “I will keep thy secret, as I have this” (88). Even though one would suppose both men to have significant roles in Hester’s life, they distance themselves and pretend as …show more content…
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
Both characters had to live with the shame and guilt, but how they dealt with it during their lives was different. The two both had a physical symbol on them that they had to live with for their whole lives. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale’s mark was branded on his chest where no one could see it. The community was clueless to what Dimmesdale had done. He concealed his transgression from the town, causing his guilt to build up inside of him. In contrast, everyone knew that Hester had committed adultery. She was forced to stand on a scaffold and be publicly humiliated in front of everyone. The scarlet letter “A” was displayed on her clothes for everyone to see. Instead of Hester being ashamed and living in guilt her whole life, like Dimmesdale did, she used her transgression as a form of strength. Even though Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale committed the same sin, the path in which they took to cope with that sin set them apart as
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, somewhat 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.
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.
letter *A* embroidered on her chest. The A served as a symbol of her crime, was
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...
Hester and Dimmesdale both bear a scarlet letter but the way they handle it is different. Hester’s scarlet letter is a piece of clothing, the “SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom” (Hawthorn 51). Dimmesdale on the other hand, has a scarlet letter carved in his chest. This is revealed when Dimmesdale was giving his revelation, in which “he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed!” (Hawthorn 232). Since the Scarlet Letter on Hester is visible to the public, she was criticized and looked down on. “This women has brought same upon us all, and ought to die” (Hawthorn 49) is said by a female in the market place talking about Hester. She becomes a stronger person through living this hard life. Dimmesdale instead has to live “a life of cowardly and selfish meanness, that added tenfold disgrace and ignominy to his original crime” (Loring 185). He becomes weaker and weaker by time, “neither growing wiser nor stronger, but, day after day, paler and paler, more and more abject” (Loring 186). Their courage is also weak.
The way Hester and Dimmesdale approached their sins has a direct correlation with how they lived the rest of their lives. Hester confessed her sin because she had no choice she already had incriminating evidence in the form of a child and had to confess or be expelled from the community. In this sense, Hester had no choice but to confess or leave the community and she chose to confess. Although, we may not know why she made this choice, but we know she made it and she decided to stay with it and not leave the community in order to possibly confess her sins. Arthur Dimmesdale did not confess his sins for all the wrong reasons. He didn’t confess for mostly two reasons those being: his belief that man did not judge other men but only God can do that or that he will better serve his people with a sinful heart and not a sinful appearance. Arthur had to deal with all the pressures of a life of sin but also the pressure of his own conscience to confess those sins. The pressures on his body were worse than that of Hester who had confessed her sins. One of the main reasons that Arthur was in poor physical condition was that the wise Doctor Chillingworth had poisoned him, and kept poisoning him until he had confessed of his sins at the end of the book. This and the fact that his grief and guilt had led him to totally decimate his body both spiritually and physically he had just driven himself too far. Farther than any person should take this kind of self-mutilation. His social life also suffered as a result of this physical and mental torture because he had turned into a walking zombie and had not been very responsive to anything but his terrible torment. In this way, he was degrading himself and thought it necessary to do so for repentance. Although, he had not voiced his sin publicly he had preached about himself not being pure and being a sinner. In spite of this, the unknowing congregation worshiped him all the more for his self-proclamation of sinfulness without telling what his sin was.
Dimmesdale is not ignorant, he is very well educated. As Hawthorne states, “…Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale; a young clergyman who had come from one of the great English universities, bringing all the learning of the age into our wild forestland. His eloquence and religious fervor had already given the earnest of high eminence in his profession.” (Hawthorne 72) This man’s morals had, until the adultery, been high. He is very spiritual because on top of being of the Puritan faith, he is a minister of the word of God. Throughout most of the novel, Rev. Dimmesdale is forced to hide his guilt of being Hester’s partner in sin. When in reality, he is not being forced by anyone, but himself, for he is the one who chooses not to reveal his secret to the town. Dimmesdalehas a concealed sin that is, eating at him. He just doesn’t have the courage to admit his wrongs. He seems to be a coward during these seven years of living with guilt. There is a scene in chapter 3 where Rev. Dimmesdale states, “Hester Prynne…If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow –sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for,
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).
Hester and Dimmesdale are a pairing that is important to the novel; they create an illustration of the prisoners’ dilemma. Dimmesdale recognized his actions, but continued to stay silent, which hurts him. On the other hand, Hester publicly confessed her adultery. As a result, she did not have as much pain as Dimmesdale. The puritan community also began to believe the “A” meant able, not its intended meaning. Certainly, confessing is a much better choice than staying silent, and as a result, it will most definitely benefit the
It wasn’t until the end of the novel that Dimmesdale actually found out for sure that Chillingworth was Hester’s husband. Chillingworth asked Hester to conceal his identity and no one other than those two knew of the truth. The townspeople believed that her husband is an Englishman and was previously living with Hester in Amsterdam but decided that they should move to America. Once sending Hester to America first, he never joined her. Not only does Chillingworth hide his identity as Hester’s husband, he also sort of gains another identity as being the “Black Man.” This identity grows on him more and more as the novel progresses. While Dimmesdale and Hester are in the forest together, Hester finally decides to tell who Chillingworth really is. By this part though, it was made obvious that Dimmesdale had sort of a suspicion of it. He doesn’t too much worry about it since he has plans for him, Hester, and Pearl to leave for
Chillingworth changed his name from Prynne to disassociate himself from Hester and her shame. Right after the meeting in Bellingham’s house, the narrator states that, “under the appellation of Roger Chillingworth… was hidden another name, which its former wearer had resolved should never more be spoken” (107). Nevertheless, Chillingworth has chosen to change his name, not only to distance his association with Hester, but to keep himself hidden while trying to find Hester’s lover. All the while Chillingworth is attending to Dimmesdale, Dimmesdale has no idea of Chillingworth’s plan for revenge or his real identity. Their entire relationship involves little honesty, on both sides, without either of them realizing at first. Eventually, The moment Dimmesdale finds out about this hidden identity, he feels horrified and his “character had been so much enfeebled by suffering… he sank down on the ground , and buried his face in his hands” (175). Dimmesdale feels betrayed by both Chillingworth and Hester. After this, Dimmesdale is on edge about being around Chillingworth, further intensifying his paranoia. He knew that Chillingworth was no longer a “trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy” (201). Dimmesdale was then aware of Chillingworth’s deep desire for revenge that
Dimmesdale committed adultery with Hester. It was hard for him to deal with this especially since he was a minister. Dimmesdale knew he had done wrong. Dimmesdale says, “... for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee...yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life." Dimmesdale was hard on himself by scourging and whipping himself. He felt like God would never forgive him. Dimmesdale wanted to admit the sin so badly but he was afraid of being judged. Most people viewed him as a wonderful minister but he viewed himself as a sinner that was going to hell. Toward the end of the book, he went to the scaffold and told the truth to all the people. He then revealed his scarlet letter and then collapsed and died. Dimmesdale felt like the only way of overcoming his sin was to admit what
Truthfulness is one of the most important themes in “The Scarlet Letter,” because it represents a valued aspect in the Puritan society as it makes one pure and true to oneself. Truthfulness also provides a way to escape sin, because those who lie are considered sinners. Chillingworth reinforces this idea when he says to Dimmesdale, “There was no one place so secret...where thou couldst have escaped me, saved on this very scaffold” (Hawthorne 172). From this, one can see that the revealing of Dimmesdale’s sin has allowed him to escape the torture that was brought upon him by the Devil in the form of Chillingworth, ultimately proving that honesty is truly a powerful force in their society. The entirety of truthfulness is also emphasized by Nathaniel