Scarlet Letter Redemption Essay

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Acknowledgement and Self-Forgiveness: Redemption in The Scarlet Letter
I care about what people think of me a lot more that I would like to admit. Not only do I look to others for reassurance, occasionally I realize my entire self worth is dependent upon the opinions of complete outsiders. Hawthorne provides a curiously simple two-step process to redemption that resonated with me in The Scarlet Letter. It involved both accepting your misconduct and learning to let go of it yourself, something I struggle to practice, because I depend upon the acceptance of others. Hester Prynne and Dimmsdale, the two primary characters that seem to struggle to attain redemption in this novel, help display realistically the challenges of following this process to achieve redemption and the rewards of attaining true redemption. In The Scarlet Letter, I learned redemption is attained through both acknowledgement of your sin and self-forgiveness of your misconduct.
Dimmsdale does
Yet, The Scarlet Letter gave me three-dimensional characters that are sinful and imperfect yet can attain redemption by following themselves and acting on their romantic impulses. The first step of redemption, acceptance, while seemingly difficult to people such as Dimmsdale, comes fairly natural to me. I openly accept my flaws and have no problem admitting to them. However, the second step, self-forgiveness, constantly plagues me. I remember as a child, being wrongly accused of things by my parents. My mom used to me that if I truly were not guilty, that it would not matter what others thought of me. I realize now she was telling me, much like in The Scarlet Letter, that redemption is more than acceptance by others, it is looking at yourself and finding redemption from

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