How Does Dimmesdale Change Throughout The Scarlet Letter

As Dimmesdale has not been able to confess to his sin, he feels worse about himself. He tries in his sermons, but this is not understood by his audience, as they think it is simply a lesson. When he stands with Pearl and Hester on the scaffold at night, this is the first time he has “publicly” confessed to his crime; “[Hester] silently ascended the steps, and stood on the platform, holding little Pearl by the hand. The minister felt for the child’s other hand, and took it. The moment he did so there came a tumultuous rush of new life” (140).

Arthur Dimmesdale uses the strategies of ethos and pathos, as well as devices such as rhetorical questions in order to provoke emotion in his audience: Mr. Wilson, Governor Bellingham, and Roger Chillingworth. While the group of men, Mr. Wilson, Governor Bellingham, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale are walking in Governor Bellingham’s garden, Hester Prynne and her child Pearl are walking to Governor Bellingham's mansion. There was a rumour spreading, and one that was becoming quite popular among the townspeople, that Pearl, a child of sin, should be taken from her mother. Hester had come to discuss this situation with governor Bellingham and try to persuade him to not take her light away, but he would not listen. In an act of desperation,

In his first speech Dimmesdale's purpose is to get Hester Prynne to confess who the father is. This accusatory purpose Dimmesdale conveys is trying to get Hester Prynne to confess but at the same time keep her mouth shut. "I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer" (Hawthorne 57). This quote shows that Dimmesdale asks Hester publicly the Who the father is so the Community does not get suspicious of the authority of Dimmesdale. In Dimmesdale's second speech his purpose changes from accusatory to remorseful. With seven years passing and Dimmesdale harming himself he wants to be free of the guilt of the secret. " It seemed, at this point, as if the minister must leave the remainder of his secret disclosed. But he fought back the bodily weakness- and, still more, the faintness of heart." ( Hawthorne 208). This quote shows that Dimmesdale is weakly fighting back the guilt of his secret and he can not take it anymore. He has had enough of living with the lie so he

This scene in the book makes the reader feel as though Dimmesdale’s salvation is a reality because of all the opportunities he had to confess his sin but didn’t until now. Also during this scene, Dimmesdale not only asks for God’s forgiveness for himself, but Chilling worth too because he discovered that Dimmesdale is Hester’s partner. "May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" (23.28-29) In this part of the book, Dimmesdale makes it appear that he and God have a type of an abusive relationship, but Dimmesdale thinks he deserves every bit of it. "God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions. By giving me this burning torture to bear upon my breast! By sending yonder dark and terrible old man, to keep

The insight I have gained from this excerpt is the reason being Pearl rejects Dimmesdale is as a result from him not publically acknowledging her. Furthermore, the reason being Pearl dislikes him is, due to he acts differently when in public, in contrast when he was in the forest, to illustrate he holds hands with pearl in the forest, however when they are in public he behaves as if they don't know each other. In addition, the insight I have gained is that Pearl exclaims to her mother that he is a strange man, in order to mock and ridicule Dimmesdale and Hester. Furthermore she achieves mocking and ridiculing Hester and Dimmesdale by referencing that he holds his hand over his heart, in order to connect it with the scarlet letter in Hester’s

He was scared to tell the truth because he knew he was in the wrong and he didn’t want to get in trouble for his sin. He was a man of God and he did not want people to see him as a sinner, instead of the man of God he was portraying. He was well thought of because he had a good reputation and he was the minister and he wanted to keep it that way. Dimmesdale was a normal sinner because I think that most normal people are scared to confess to others about what they have done wrong. Dimmesdale was conflicted. He had sinned and kept that sin to himself, in order to actually “save” himself. However, Pearl was physical evidence of his sin and this was very a very conflicting reminder of the sin he trying to hide. “At the great judgement day,” whispered the minister-and, strangely enough, the sense that he was a professional teacher of truth impelled him to answer the child so. “Then, and there, before the judgement seat, they mother, and thou, and I, must stand together. But daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!” (page Ch 12) He was also very frail. His appearance was pale and his eyes showed the sadness and guilt he carried as a type of “cross” or “scarlet letter” for the sin he tried unsuccessfully to bury deep inside of himself. He could be considered a villain and a

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the main characters is Arthur Dimmesdale, a Puritan minister living in Boston during the seventeenth century. Another main character, Hester Prynne, is the young wife of the aging Roger Chillingworth, a doctor who has recently gone missing. Dimmesdale and Hester commit adultery together and Hester becomes pregnant. Because her husband has been missing, however, the community discoverers her sin and they severely punish Hester. Dimmesdale does not confess to have taken a part in the adultery, and even with the ill treatment she receives, Hester refuses to reveal her partner in crime.

Dimmesdale could have stayed away from the powerful people in the community and made himself seem as if he was ashamed of something he had done. An argument that may go against him demoting himself from the higher powers of the community is that he might then be recognized as Pearl’s father because he is avoiding the situation. Although that is a valid point, that would just help the argument of him being a coward because he is acting as if he is still better than the

She became an independent woman and her life is turning better. She never did anything that obeys moral, she always helped poor people, and she was always a good mother for Pearl. At the same time, the private guilt started spark out. The town noticed that Dimmesdale always put his hands over his heart and he looks more and more sick, he became week and feeble in an obvious way. Because of this, the town also makes he and Chillingworth to live together, he got much stressed and very sensitive, he even went to the scaffold during the night and the letter A appeared in the sky pointed out that he really need to tell the town the truth, he couldn’t just cover the truth and hide it forever - the private guilt need to came out!

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book “The Scarlet letter” Nathaniel makes everyone question dimmesdale’s death, and if it was considered an accident or murder. A lot of people might believe that dimmesdale’s death was not to be a murder, however others might disagree on that theory. Chillingworth made Dimmesdale think about things that dimmesdale wouldn’t think of on his own. Chillingworth wanted to psychologically cause Dimmesdale pain and wanted him to think about all of the sins that he had committed and how it wasn’t a good thing for his to keep them from people and also to hide them from anyone. Of course if anyone nags you about something that you did and all of the sins that you had done, you would feel bad about yourself and would want to reveal all of your sins, well that was the situation with Dimmesdale and Chillingworth.

Once Dimmesdale’s two identities begin to clash, he decides to run away from the town and people that makes him question himself, instead of facing the problem head on. Leaving the town can be seen as Dimmesdale choosing to be the man that loved Hester instead of the man that the people wanted him to be, but in reality, leaving without revealing his secret was the easiest way for Dimmesdale to solve his confusion; he just ran away from it. In the back of his mind, Dimmesdale will believe he is pure, and that he no longer has to admit to his sin. However, the readers know from Pearl’s reaction to her father that he is, in a sense, filthy for lying. When Pearl and Dimmesdale meet, Pearl blames Dimmesdale for “changing” his mother, and when he kisses Pearl, she washes it off in a stream, and throws a

Dimmesdale as an individual and through his secret actions symbolize how self-centered and egotistical he is. Both Dimmesdale and Hester committed adultery, but Hester was the one who got all the hatred and disrespect from everyone in the Puritan town. She went through some awful situations with the scarlet letter, and it changed her so much. While she was going through all this pain, Dimmesdale was hiding his sins. This was a selfish act by Dimmesdale towards Hester and Pearl, but not admitting the sin bit him right in the butt. He was torturing himself and receiving physical pain in various ways; he whipped himself, stared at the mirror for periods of time, and starved himself. Even though he didn’t reveal his sin to the public, his heart was still “making itself guilty of such secrets” (127). He felt very guilty for the agony that Hester has been through. She has experienced hatred from herself mentally and from the Puritan people verbally. He didn’t want the people to treat him like they treated Hester; he loves how he gets respect from the townspeople. The only pain he has received was from himself mentally and physically, but not verbal and emotional pain like Hester. He doesn’t want to experience those dreadful moments that she had gone through. This action proves to the readers how Arthur Dimmesdale symbolizes self-centered

In many pieces of literature, identity is continuously a theme that pops up. Whether it is in movies from Disney, or books from Hawthorne, or even in life: identity has crawled its way into being one of the most important theme. As Elastigirl from The Incredibles once said, “your identity is your valuable possession. Protect it.” After thinking about that quote for hours, the one question that continuously kept running around in my mind was, how do we know what our identity is?

Additionally, the text describes Dimmesdale not as the minister, but rather as “her father”, which demonstrates how Dimmesdale has changed in Pearl’s eyes from the man who needed to confess to his crimes to her father, finally earning her affections. While Dimmesdale had spent most of the novel as the man who Pearl merely had to draw a confession from, by the end of the novel, with this confession finally released, Dimmesdale became Pearl’s father, and the cause of her greatest

That union resulted in the birth of his daughter, Pearl, but he refused to admit that he was the father choosing instead to keep this information a secret from the town. However, not confessing his guilt was spiritually eating him alive. Dimmesdale should have confessed that Pearl was his illegitimate daughter for three reasons. By acknowledging his sin he should be completely absolved of the guilt of adultery, could be openly involved in Hester and Pearl’s life and would be significantly healthier in body, mind and soul.