Scarlet Letter: Effects Of Adultery

Effects of Adultery Everyone sins in their life, some more than others, and sins can be fixed, but some sins stay with people forever. In the book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are examples of people sinning and how it affected their lives. Hester and dimmesdale both committed a sin that hurt them in many ways. Throughout the book they became nervous, stressed, and heartless. Their feelings change in the book from the time they first committed adultery to when they confessed. Eventually, every sin comes out and the sin is even worse than it was before. For starters Dimmesdale was nervous when Mr. Wilson and the clergyman tried making Hester tell them who the father is. The conversation went like this “‘Speak, woman!’...

‘And my child must seek a heavenly Father; she shall never know an earthly one!’/ ‘She will not speak!’ murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, … He now drew back, with a long respiration. ‘Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman’s heart! She will not speak!’” (Hawthorne 47-48). Dimmesdale seemed relieved that Hester didn’t tell them who the father was. Hester wouldn’t tell anyone because she didn’t want him to get hurt and she didn’t want to lose her child . Hester became nervous when Chillingworth said he was going to torture Dimmesdale. Chillingworth said “‘... A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!’/…. ‘Hast thou not tortured him enough?’ said Hester, noticing the old man’s look. ‘Has he not paid thee all?’/… ‘And what am I now?’ demanded he, looking into her face, and permitting the

They both become stressed in different ways. Hester became stressed when she had to take care of her child by herself. As soon as Hester and Pearl got out of jail Hester had these feelings “Perhaps there was a more real torture in her first unattended footsteps from the threshold of the prison, than even in the procession and spectacle that have been described, where she was made the common infamy, at which all mankind was summoned to point its finger. Then, she was supported by an unnatural tension of the nerves, and by all the combative energy of her character, which enabled her to convert the scene into a kind of lurid triumph.” (Hawthorne 53-54). She didn’t know what she was going to do with Pearl because she was nervous she wasn’t going to be able to handle a child alone. Dimmesdale has a different reason why he was stressed. Hester tells Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is her husband and not to be worried. Dimmesdale had thoughts like this one. “All this time, Roger Chillingworth was looking at the minister with the grave and intent regard of a physician towards his patient. But, in spite of this outward show, the latter was almost convinced of the old man’s knowledge, or, at least, his confident suspicion, with respect to his own interview with Hester Prynne. The physician knew, then, that,in the minister’s regard, he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy.” (Hawthorne 153).