Sin In Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the topic of sin during the 1700’s in Boston, Massachusetts. Hester Prynne is shunned by her town because she committed adultery with the highly idolized minister, Arthur Dimmesdale. She is alienated from society and has to find a means of support for herself and her illegitimate daughter, Pearl. Sin is seen throughout the novel and dealt with in various ways. A person’s true identity is revealed by how they cope with their sins.

As punishment, Hester Prynne is faced with wearing a scarlet letter “A,” for adultery, on her chest for the rest of her life. She had a chance to leave the town and start a new life somewhere else, but instead she decided to stay and accept her sin rather than

run away from it. A supporting quote from the text is, “Here, she said to herself, had been the scene of her guilt, and here should be the scene of her earthly punishment; and so, perchance, the torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul, and work out another purity than that which she had lost; more saint-like, because the result of martyrdom.

Hester Prynne, therefore, did not flee.” (Hawthorne, 55) Hester understands that if she runs away, this would show that the society has power and control over her. It would mean she is giving into the society's thoughts of her and be fleeing from her sin because she is not able to handle. She proves to the people that she is a strong, kind hearted woman who embraces her sin instead of letting it consume her. This is the way Hester copes with her sin. Hester is strong and learns to live with her sin and to accept it. Another quote that supports the way she copes with sin is, “Lonely as was Hester’s situation, and without a friend on earth who dared to show herself, she, however, incurred no risk of want. She possessed an art that sufficed, even in a land that afforded comparatively little scope for its exercise, to supply food for her thriving infant and herself… She bore on her breast, i the curiously embroidered letter, a specimen of her delicate and imaginative skill, of which the dames of a court might gladly have

availed themselves, to add the richer and more spiritual adornment of human ingenuity to their fabrics of silk and gold.” (Hawthorne, 56) Even though people shunn Hester and do not want to associate themselves with her, she still helps the poor, distressed, and sick. Her skill of sewing is another way she copes with her sin. Her intricately embroidered letter “A” shows how skillful and different she is. She makes the letter look as an adornment rather than a way to shame her for her sin. She embraces her sin by wearing the letter proudly an elegantly on her chest.
Arthur Dimmesdale, the highly adored minister, is the father of Hester’s illegitimate child Pearl. He cannot find it in himself to confess to the town and instead ends up punishing himself as a way of coping with his sin. Many nights, when he is alone, he thinks about his sin and punishes himself in various ways. In the text it states, “He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortures, but could not purify, himself. In these lengthened vigils, his brain often reeled,… Now it was a herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister, and beckoned him away with them; now a group of shining angels, who flew upward heavily, as sorrow-laden, but grew more ethereal as they rose.” (Hawthorne, 100) Since Dimmesdale cannot confess to the public, he is faced with daily guilt and as a result whips himself and is haunted by evil thoughts. This is Dimmesdale’s way of coping with sin. Another supporting quote from the text is, “ No eye could see him… Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced, with jeering laughter!” (Hawthorne, 101) One early morning, Dimmesdale goes out to the scaffold and yells out when the town is still sleeping. He tries to confess and hopes that someone might hear him but there is no one in sight and all the houses are dark. A few people woke up thinking that it was just a witch flying by and went back to sleep. Dimmesdale tries to make this situation into a way that he confesses when no one was watching.
Roger Chillingworth tries to get revenge on the unknown father of Pearl.

Chillingworth tries to use his words to lure Dimmesdale to confess. A supporting quote from the text is, “These men deceive themselves,… They fear to take up the shame that rightfully belongs to them. Their loe for man, their zeal for God’s service,―these holy impulses may or may not exist at the same time in their hearts with the evil inmates to which their guilt has unbarred the door, and which must needs propagate a hellish breed within them.” (Hawthorne, 97) Chillingworth is conversing with Dimmesdale and he subtly talks about good men being too scared to confess and accept the shame that rightfully belongs to them. He is trying to break Dimmesdale to the point where he will have no other choice than to confess. In order to deal with his sin of trying to achieve his revenge, he needs to do whatever it takes to expose Dimmesdale. Another quote that demonstrates how Chillingworth deals with his sin is “Hadst thou sought the whole earth over,… there was no one place so secret,―no high place nor nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,―save on this very scaffold!” (hawthorne, 224) At the end of the novel, it is ironic that Chillingworth spent all his time trying to get revenge on Dimmesdale and in the end, he ended up confessing on his own. Now, Chillingworth does not have anything to truly live for in life and he wasted all his time trying to reveal Pearl’s father. The rest of his life

is going to be spent trying to make up for it.
The way a person deals with their sins can reveal a person’s true identity. These examples show that this novel can help the readers understand how each character is different and deals with sin differently. When Hester committed this sin, she must have known the outcome but still chose love over the consequences. She must have believed that what she did was not a sin. That is the way she saw it in her eyes. Sin is in the eye of the beholder.