More handpicked essays just for you.
Symbols and Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter Essay
Symbols and Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter Essay
Symbols and Symbolism in The Scarlet Letter Essay
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
“Guilt is to the spirit what is pain to the body.” This quote stated by David A. Bedar is exhibited clearly in the novel The Scarlet Letter. The main character in the novel is forced to live with the letter “A” representing adulteress on her chest. This is affianced to invariably remind her of the guilt she should posses for the crime of adultery. This affects a multitude of people including Hester, the mother of an illegitimate child Pearl, and Dimmesdale, the father of Pearl. Their guilt is apparent while Chillingworth, Hester's husband, is seeking revenge for the tratorious action. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses the display of guilt to show the theme that guilt is an everlasting punishment, which affects Hester and Dimmesdale specifically.
Inside and out, guilt physically affected the father of the illegitimate child. In the novel, Dimmesdale physically harms himself because he feels so culpable. He cuts the letter “A” into his chest, where he would have if he had previously confessed to being Pearl’s father when Hester was put on the scaffold. He hid the scars because he did not want to be publically humiliated and he was afraid of Chillingworth, Hester's husband. Dimmesdale knew that he should not be exempt of the permanent punishment: “It was his
…show more content…
The pain inflicted on all the characters throughout the novel is proof of this guilt. Dimmesdale experienced guilt in such great measures that drive him to act out of character and follow through with actions that he would not normally do. Hawthorne demonstrates the living feel of emotions, specifically guilt, that can be the root of many issues. Through the examples of Dimmesdale and his confession to the congregation and Hester fearing a future for Pearl, we are able to clearly see the active role that a simple feeling, such as guilt,
A sinful nature is an aspect in man that makes him rebellious against God. Everyone has a sinful nature and it affects every part of us. Sin corrupts the human mind and has consequences for doing wrong in the eyes of the Lord. Every individual on Earth sins, and this is represented in the novel The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to portray how different people cope with their sin and the consequences of that sin.
The sky is a canvas to the eyes of Arthur Dimmesdale, filled with the faint, twinkling light of the stars. The slight glow is enough spotlight for the guilty man to handle, and the extra light that appears from an approaching town member is too much for the stricken pastor to handle. Cowering over the confession that dwells on the edge of his tongue, he misses the chance to free himself from the inner shame that binds him and sets his degenerating heart apart from the healthily-beating one of his past lover that is free from the weight of a scandalous secret. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne develops the character of Arthur Dimmesdale by way of his ill-defined sermons and public interactions with the Puritan townspeople that contrast with his deep talks with Hester and
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.
Guiltiness possesses Reverend Dimmesdale. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale fails to come clean about his sin of fornication until moments before his death. Therefore, he struggles with his guilt throughout the entire book, almost until his death. Hester learns to cope with her scarlet “A,” but Dimmesdale cannot without confessing. When he does not confess, he becomes depressed and self-inflicts punishment on himself by carving an “A” into his chest by his heart, among other actions. In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale suffers from his sin in the entire story until seconds before his death, when he absolves himself from all guilt.
...d making his condition even worse by not confessing his sin. It was his own choice to keep his sin a secret when he should have confessed it a long time ago. Also, it was his own choice to torture himself. Dimmesdale believed that he should be the one punishing himself because his sin was a secret so therefore he had to deal with it and punish his sin on his own, minus the torturing from Chillingworth. Therefore, Hawthorne describes sinning as being better if the sin is a public sin and not a private sin and he also believed that one chooses to become evil. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are tremendous examples of Hawthorne’s definition of sin and evil.
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 is full of many psychological and moral aspects, and most of them relate very well to things that are going on right now in the world. They all go hand in hand meaning that the aspects that were explained in The Scarlet Letter, can also be explained in the same way as they can be explained now. Although times were very different in the times where The Scarlet Letter took place, they are all relevant for what people have to say about certain things in today's world. The moral aspects of the Scarlet Letter are almost the same as moral aspects of today.
Through the use of numerous symbols, Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter serves as an allegory for the story of Adam and Eve and its relation to sin, knowledge, and the human condition that is present in human society. Curious for the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in the revelation of their “humanness” and expulsion from the “divine garden” as they then suffered the pain and joy of being humans. Just as Adam and Eve were expelled from their society and suffered in their own being, so were Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. Hester was out casted and shunned, while Dimmesdale suffered under his own guilt. After knowledge of her affair is made known, Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest to symbolize her crime of adultery, and is separated from the Puritan society. Another “A” appears in the story, and is not embroidered, but instead scarred on Dimmesdale’s chest as a symbol of guilt and suffering. Hester’s symbol of guilt comes in the form of her daughter, Pearl, who is the manifestation of her adultery, and also the living version of her scarlet letter. Each of these symbols come together to represent that with sin comes personal growth and advancement of oneself in society as the sinner endures the good and bad consequences.
One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered on Hester Prynne’s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or feeling kept within slowly engulfs and destroys the soul such as Dimmesdale’s sin of hypocrisy and Chillingworth’s sin of vengeance, while a secret made public, such as Prynne’s adultery, can allow a soul to recover and even strengthen.
Guilt is a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, whether real or imagined. There are different types of guilt. Guilt can be caused by a physical thing a person did that he isn’t proud of, or wanted to hide, can be something a person imagined he did to someone or something else, or can be caused when a person did something to his God or religion. Everyone at some time in his or her life has a run in with guilt, and it has a different impact on each person. People, who are feeling guilty because of something they did or said, can influence how other people act and feel. Some people are affected worse by guilt than others, for example, Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter. Talked about in The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale, a man with the deepest guilt, was responsible for the moral well-being of his people. He went against his teachings, committed adultery, and left the woman to suffer publicly alone while he stayed like a hero in the town. On the other hand, sometimes the masses are affected by one person’s guilt. He was affected much more by guilt, because he didn’t tell anyone of what he had done. By keeping guilt internalized, a person ultimately ends up hurting himself. More than seventy percent of all things that make people feel guilty are found out later on in their life by other people. Guilt has three categories that it affects the most in people: physical, mental, and spiritual.
Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments Arthur Dimmesdale. The vile physician offers his ‘help’ to the sickly Reverend, but he gives the exact opposite. Chillingworth inflicts daily, mental tortures upon Arthur Dimmesdale for seven long years, and he enjoys it. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all connected by their sins and shame, but what they do in regards to those sins is what sets them apart from each other.
“A bloody scourge…rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance.” (Hawthorne, 141) In the Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Minister Dimmesdale starved himself, whipped himself, and tortured himself to get rid of the guilt caused by his sin with Hester Prynne. Hawthorne describes the minister’s guilt as the evil that anchored him down and shows how Dimmesdale tortures himself but can never get rid of it. His guilt came from many things. First was his guilt for committing the crime with Hester Prynne. Second is his guilt for not being with her at the time that she was put upon the scaffold. Last was his guilt from not revealing himself to his own daughter and from having to stay out of her life due to fear of being shamed by the community. Hawthorne’s views on guilt and Dimmesdale are mostly that his guilt controlled his life completely until the very end when the power of the sin and guilt took over to the point where he couldn’t control himself.
He fell in love with Hester because of her striking beauty and, he too, wants to keep his identity a secret to his peers. He feels guilty while he sees Hester standing on the scaffold, but he doesn’t stand up there with her. He should have been a man and admitted to the crime like Hester did. After a while, Dimmesdale’s guilt eats away at his health. Dimmesdale becomes ill due to the medical services given by Chillingworth. Chillingworth knows Dimmesdale is Hester’s lover and he will get the revenge he wants. Dimmesdale is oblivious to Chillingworth’s “kindness” and his health declines quickly. One night, Dimmesdale finds himself standing on the scaffold like he was going to shout to the world that he was Hester’s partner. (quote on when he was on the scaffold). This was the time to admit his sin so the guilt would lessen. Hawthorne is showing how weak Dimmesdale is as a person and that Hester doesn’t deserve someone as weak as
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...
though out the rest of the book. One of the main character's that is affected