Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, focuses on the effects of a secret, ungodly affair between the beautiful Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale who is a
Puritan minister. Their affair results in a baby named Pearl. Everyone in town is extremely curious about who the father of Pearl is. Dimmesdale and Hester hide their secret from the townspeople, because Dimmesdale is worried his wrongdoing will result in a bad reputation. In addition to going to prison, Hester has to wear the Scarlet Letter, which is an “A”, on her chest every day. Hester also has to stand on the scaffold, so everyone in the town can recognize that she is an adulteress. There are three scaffold scenes in The Scarlet Letter. The three scaffold scenes state “Much emphasis has been placed upon them, and justly so; to know these scenes well is to have a purchase on a romance which is remarkable for its synthesis of elements” (“Scarlet” 109). Dimmesdale starts to feel worse when Hester stands on the scaffold
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in front of the townspeople.Through the three scaffold scenes, Dimmesdale dramatically changes from a silent coward, to a shameful minister, and then a triumphant Puritan. In the first scaffold scene, Dimmesdale is showing how he is being a silent coward. He does not want to confess that he is the father of Pearl. Dimmesdale lets Hester shamefully stand up on the scaffold alone. When the townspeople ask Hester Griesbeck 1 who the father is, Dimmesdale is, “expressing both nervous sensibility and a vast power of self-restraint.—an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look,--as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence” (Hawthorne 62). Since Hester got out of prison, Dimmesdale is terrified that the truth will come out. He has to talk to Hester from the balcony, because Mr. Wilson wants Dimmesdale to figure out who the father is. Dimmesdale leans over the balcony and says to Hester, “What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him--yea, compel him, as it were--to add hypocrisy to sin?” (63) Dimmesdale does not want the townspeople thinking he is Pearl’s father, because he does not want to be condemned like Hester. This shows what a hypocrite he is when it comes to Hester and his secret. He knows he is the father of Pearl, but he does not seem to have any interest in telling the people of the town. In this first scaffold scene, Dimmesdale’s silence and cowardliness shows how he thinks more about his peers and his reputation than his own daughter. During the second scaffold scene, Dimmesdale has become an immensely shameful minister. He continues to feel guilty about his long lasting secret. The use of the bloody scourge is a perfect example of his personal struggle and guilt. The bloody scourge is the whip he uses to make himself an “A” on his chest that only he can see. When Dimmesdale decides to go to the scaffold one night to pray, “He shrieked aloud: an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background” (135). Dimmesdale’s frustration and anguish is starting to get to him. He is hoping that the town will wake up and find him on the scaffold. However, none of the townspeople hear Dimmesdale’s shriek, because it is during the middle of the night. Griesbeck 2 Dimmesdale, then, sees Pearl and Hester and says, "Ye have both been here before, but I was not with you. Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together” (139). Dimmesdale feels a little more relief when the three of them are all together without the townspeople knowing. Even though Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl are all united together on the scaffold at night, Dimmesdale is still not quite ready to expose his secret to the whole town. In the dramatic third scaffold scene, Dimmesdale becomes a triumphant Puritan.
Today is the day that Dimmesdale has his election sermon. Dimmesdale knows that he is about to die, and he knows how shameful he still feels on the inside. Dimmesdale signals for Hester and Pearl to join him up on the scaffold one last time. Dimmesdale says, "May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!” (233). This quote means that Dimmesdale is ultimately ready to confess his sin that he has been keeping all of these years. He dies believing that he is forgiven of all of his sins. Dimmesdale’s last words are “By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost for ever! Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell!”(229). This states that Dimmesdale has repented his sins, and he can die in peace. Dimmesdale’s shame is triumphant, because he confesses his secret about being the father of
Pearl. Throughout the scaffold scenes, Dimmesdale expresses various emotions. Ultimately, Hester and Dimmesdale suffers through the years because of their ungodly sin. In the first scaffold scene, Dimmesdale is scared to admit that he is the father of Pearl. He assumes the townspeople will think he is a hypocrite and a bad minister. If he tells the town this secret, there is a good possibility that he will be judged and thrown in Griesbeck 3 prison like Hester. During the second scaffold scene, Dimmesdale starts to feel disgraceful because he has not admitted to his sin, and he has let Hester take all of the blame. In the third scaffold scene, Dimmesdale transforms to a successful Puritan. Dimmesdale knows that he is dying, and he wants to finally have a clear conscience, so he can be released from his sin. In the end, Dimmesdale and Hester have finally confessed. Dimmesdale is free from his sin and secret.
In The Scarlet Letter, the main characters Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale are tangled in a web of deceit, which is the result of a sin as deadly as the Grimm Reaper himself: adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, describes the feeling of deceit using the main characters; for each of the cast the reaction to the deceit is different, thus the reader realizes the way a person reacts to a feeling differs between each character.
Dimmesdale is to deliver this sermon, and it is a very big event in Puritan society. Hawthorne’s goal in this chapter is to relate the idea of things that happen in the past will almost always catch back up to you. Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl almost had a perfect escape until they found out that Chillingworth would be joining them. Dimmesdale has now been forced into a position where repenting his sins would be a better option than running away from them, and I believe he will do so during his
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter tells the story of Hester Prynne, a sinner, living in a puritan society. As punishment, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter on her chest. Her daughter Pearl is the product of her sinful ways, and a constant reminder of her wrongdoing. Pearl’s embodiment of the Scarlet Letter causes her hostile relationships with the world and her mother. However, when Dimmesdale kisses her, he frees her from isolation and allows her to form human connections.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s well known novel, The Scarlet Letter, extensive diction and intense imagery are used to portray the overall tone of the characters. In particular, Hester Prynne, the wearer of the Scarlet Letter, receives plentiful positive characterization throughout the novel. Hester’s character most notably develops through the town’s peoples ever-changing views on the scarlet letter, the copious mentions of her bravery, and her ability to take care of herself, Pearl, and others, even when she reaches the point where most would give up and wallow in their suffering.
The characters Hawthorne develops are deep, unique, and difficult to genuinely understand. Young, tall, and beautiful Hester Prynne is the central protagonist of this story. Shamefully, strong-willed and independent Hester is the bearer of the scarlet letter. Burning with emotion, she longs for an escape from her mark, yet simultaneously, she refuses to seem defeated by society’s punishment. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale claims the secondary role in The Scarlet Letter; he is secretly Hester’s partner in adultery. Conflicted and grieved over his undisclosed act, he drives himself to physical and mental sickness. He fervently desires Hester, but should he risk his godly reputation by revealing the truth? Dimmesdale burns like Hester. Pearl, the child produced in Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, is the third main character. She is fiery, passionate, perceiving, and strikingly symbolic; at one point in the novel she is referred to as “the scarlet letter endowed with life!” Inevitably, Pearl is consumed with questions about herself, her mother, and Dimmesdale. The reader follows Pearl as she discovers the truth. Altogether, Hawthorne’s use of intricately complex, conflicted ch...
Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne attempted to expose the varying ways in which different people deal with lingering guilt from sins they have perpetrated. The contrasting characters of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale ideally exemplified the differences in thought and behavior people have for guilt. Although they were both guilty of committing the same crime, these two individuals differed in that one punished themselves with physical and mental torture and the other chose to continue on with their life, devoting it to those less fortunate than they.
The Scarlet Letter starts off by throwing Hester Prynne into drama after being convicted for adultery in a Puritan area. Traveling from Europe to America causes complications in her travel which also then separates her from her husband, Roger Chillingworth for about three years. Due to the separation, Hester has an affair with an unknown lover resulting in having a child. Ironically, her lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, is a Reverend belonging to their church who also is part of the superiors punishing the adulterer. No matter how many punishments are administered to Hester, her reactions are not changed. Through various punishments, Hester Prynne embraces her sin by embroidering a scarlet letter “A” onto her breast. However, she is also traumatized deep within from everything she’s been through. Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts this story of sin by using rhetorical devices such as allusion, alliteration and symbolism.
Hester Prynne is a character who gave up everything, even love, for her child. Hester Prynne sacrificed her peace, her beauty, her entire being for her child and this shows her determination and profound understanding of the world. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s piece, “The Scarlet Letter” shows the other side of the sinner’s story and not as a villain, but a victim.
At the beginning of the story, the scaffold “constituted a portion of a penal machine” (48) that completely disgraces the one punished, in this case Hester Prynn. We learn from the crowd that she committed adultery and that the scarlet letter she wore on her bosom is the embodiment of such sin. However, despite her fear of exposing her dishonor to the entire public, Hester showed an extreme amount of self control by hiding her continuous agony under an apparent elegance and beauty. Even when Hester recognized her husband, she did not show her anguish more than by inadvertently squeezing her child. On the other hand, Dimmesdale was completely craven in that scene. Instead of bearing the shame with Hester, since he was the father of the child, Dimmesdale stood high above the scaffold, on the side of “justice.” Although he appeared righteous when he prompted Hester to reveal the name of the other adulterer, his “frightened look” (59) and his “long respiration” (61) after Hester refused to talk betrayed Dimmesdale’s cowardice. Therefore, in this scene, sin was not onl...
The Scarlet letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The plot focuses on sin in the Puritan society. Hester Prynne, the protagonist, has an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale, which means they are adulterers and sinners. As a result, Pearl is born and Hester is forced to where the scarlet letter. Pearl is a unique character. She is Hester’s human form of her scarlet letter, which constantly reminds her of her sin, yet at the same time, Pearl is a blessing to have since she represents the passion that Hester once had.
Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, struggle to go about life. The characters Hester and Dimmesdale both are ostracized in the story and run into complications with the puritan society and how its morals affect them. The literary elements symbolism, imagery, and setting emphasize the motivations and reactions with the conflict of individual vs. society.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once said, “Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death.” This quote truly captures Dimmesdale’s death and journey to death, it is guilt that drives him to the grave and it accompanies him throughout all five grieving stages. Dimmesdale is one of many characters in The Scarlet Letter that is faced with problems both personally and spiritually. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a romantic novel about a young woman, Hester Prynne, who is permanently marked with her sin by a scarlet A she must bare on her chest and also by her daughter Pearl. Hester committed adultery with the young minister of Boston, Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester, and her beloved child Pearl, learn to over come the A and change the meaning of it from adulterer to able, while they are changing the way society views them, Dimmesdale is withering away under the “care” of Rodger Chillingworth, Hester’s past husband. Chillingworth knows about the sin and seeks revenge on Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is helpless and in a downward spiral. He let the sin become who he is, even though the towns people don’t know of his adultery until his dying breath. The Scarlet Letter is a story about overcoming the darkness that hangs above you and stepping out of the sin or gloom that controls you. For characters like Hester this is a fairly easy thing to handle, but on the flip side characters like Dimmesdale struggle and can not seem to escape their heinous acts and don’t find peace of mind until they die. The Scarlet Letter mainly focuses on the process of overcoming these troubling times and how each individual character handles the pressure, stress, and guilt that come along with it differently. Arthur Dimmesdale is a lost soul after his sin, he expe...
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, there are many moral and social themes develped throughout the novel. Each theme is very important to the overall effect of the novel. In essence, The Scarlet Letter is a story of sin, punishment and the importance of truth. One theme which plays a big role in The Scarlet Letter is that of sin and its effects. Throughout the novel there were many sins committed by various characters. The effects of these sins are different in each character and every character was punished in a unique way. Two characters were perfect examples of this theme in the novel. Hester Prynne and The Reverend Dimmesdale best demonstrated the theme of the effects of sin.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a study of the effects of sin on the hearts and minds of the main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Sin strengthens Hester, humanizes Dimmesdale, and turns Chillingworth into a demon.