Power In 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).

Quetext About Widget FAQ Contact Grace Hodges Mrs. Drew English 10 H 4 November 2016 Women Stand Strong Where Men Fail Add a grabber sentence here. In the classic novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the characters Hester Prynne, Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are all linked together by one act of sin, and all experience shame and guilt about it. Each embarks on a separate journey to rediscover the purpose in his or her life. For Mr. Prynne, the shame of having an adulterous wife is too much to bear. He reinvents himself into Roger Chillingworth and becomes consumed in exacting revenge on Hester’s partner.

The setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet letter” is crucial to the understanding of the event that takes place in the story. The setting of the story is in Salem, Massachusetts during the Puritan era. During the Puritan era, adultery was taken as a very serious sin, and this is what Hester and Dimmesdale committ with each other. Because of the sin, their lives change, Hester has to walk around in public with a Scarlet Letter “A” which stands for adultery, and she is constantly being tortured and is thought of as less than a person. Dimmesdale walks around with his sin kept as secret, because he never admits his sin, his mental state is changing, and the sin degrades his well-being. Chillingworth

Dimmesdale is the town’s reverend, whom is looked upon as god by the town’s people. But what no one knows is that he has committed a sin in which he will not tell anyone. This is his greatest secret and greatest fear. This secret he holds is causing his health to deteriorate and cause his to be very ill. Instead of him confessing his sin he chooses to inflict self-punishment; such as fasting, scourging, and all night vigils. He committed the sin of adulthood with Hester Prynn, this sin caused Hester to bear a child. Reverend Dimmesdale is connected to Hester by their child pearl.

Members of the town praise the reverend, thinking highly of him and never assuming that he was involved with Hester. While Dimmesdale commits the same sin of adultery as Hester, it is contrastly displayed through his internal guilt and conflict. As Hester serves her punishment publicly, Dimmesdale remains anonymous as the father of Pearl, which creates suffering in itself. He even tells Hester to remain fortunate that her secret known, and that his own scarlet letter “burns in secret” (Hawthorne 147). Even though Reverend Dimmesdale has a better reputation than Hester, his ultimate resulting fate ends up to be worse.

When Dimmesdale committed adultery with Hester, he did not come forward as the father and let Hester take the sole blame. The young reverend had become rapidly ill, as the town had noticed, despite his age. He is known to have his hand over his chest, where Hester’s “A” lies on her bosom, and to look sickly, as if he were “burdened with the black secrets of his soul” (135). Not once until the very end of the novel does Dimmesdale attempt to spout the truth of Pearl’s heritage and take responsibility for his sin, and as a result he is wracked with guilt and the illness that befalls him. He even goes so far as to torture himself, and yet still does not profess his mistakes. “Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart’s entire substance” (132) remains silent. At the end of the novel, Dimmesdale comes to see he must atone for his mistakes and says “‘Let me make haste to take my shame upon me!’” (241). When Dimmesdale finally owns up and takes blame, he dies. Not facing and taking fault for his actions killed Arthur

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

Pearl is the messenger of anguish towards her mother. She is the symbol of Hester’s adultery, and the source of seven years of suffering. Pearl questions her mother and makes her contemplate her sin. Often her questions regard the scarlet letter on her mother’s breast or the minister, and her innocent questions often hurt Hester deeply. In the forest, Pearl claims to not recognize her mother when she did not wear the scarlet letter.

When Dimmesdale is at Governor Bellingham’s house to talk about what actions should be taken regarding Hester’s daughter, Pearl, he shows physical pain from his shame. While they fight about whether or not Pearl should be taken away from Hester, Dimmesdale is described as, “the young minister at once came forward, pale, and holding his hand over his heart, as was his custom whenever his peculiarly nervous temperament was thrown into agitation” (Hawthorne 117). Since Pearl is the real-world symbol of Dimmesdale’s sin, she causes him to hold his hand over his heart because he is overwhelmed with the shame and guilt of seeing her and having to keep his sin a secret. Dimmesdale thinks of his sin as not showing loyalty to God; However, he avoids confessing his sin do to the fear of judgement, and losing his upheld reputation in the society. As a result, he can never ease the shame and guilt to release his suffering.

It appalled her, nevertheless, to discern here, again, a shadowy reflection of the evil that had existed in herself. All this enmity and passion had Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester’s heart…the child seemed to be perpetuated those unquiet elements that had distracted Hester Prynne before Pearl’s birth, but had since begun to be soothed away by the softening influences of maternity

Second, Pearl is a symbol of Hester’s salvation and reason to keep living. Hester names her baby Pearl because she has paid a great price for her. In chapter eight, Hester has to fight to keep Pearl. When they go to the governor’s mansion, he threatens to take Pearl away from Hester. Pearl tells the men at the governor’s mansion that she was picked in the garden by the prison door. They are worried about her well being with Hester and want to remove her from mother. Hester fights to keep Pearl. ‘“God gave her into my keeping,” repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. “I will not give her up!”—And here, by sudden impulse, she turned to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale, at whom, up to this moment, she had seemed hardly so much as once to direct her eyes” (Hawthorne 124). Pearl is a symbol of Hester’s sin and now Hester has to raise Pearl and teach her what she did wrong. Dimmesdale steps in and tries to back up Hester and tells the governor that Pearl would guide Hester and keep her from making mistakes that she made in the past. God has given Pearl to Hester as a blessing and a reminder of her sin. The mother and daughter have already built a strong bond and Pearl is keeping Hester alive. After all of this, Hester is allowed to take Pearl home with her, but she must follow guidelines. Hester was asked to join the Black Man in the

"One token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another." (Hawthorne, 2) Guilt and shame are two of the most devastating feelings that can haunt and eat people alive for the rest of their lives. Everyone has experienced either guilt or shame in their lifetime, especially the two main characters in this book called The Scarlet Letter. Although Arthur Dimmesdale is not married, he still commits a sin with Hester Prynne, which is fornication and separating Hester and her husband, Roger Chillingworth. Hester, on the other hand, only commits adultery because she is married to Chillingworth and is sleeping with Dimmesdale who is not her husband. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, both Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne commit

The transgressions that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale perpetrates all begin when he commits adultery, and that causes him to reject his own daughter Pearl and her mother Hester. However, he still puts forward various different forms of atonement to pay for the awful wrong doings. When Hester is standing upon the scaffold Dimmesdale along with the other clergymen “stood in a

To promote the redemption of his family name, Nathaniel Hawthorne highlights the repercussions of sin through the contrasted actions of Hester and Dimmesdale in historical fiction novel The Scarlet Letter. Through the juxtaposition of the narratives of Hester and Dimmesdale, Hawthorne focuses on how they deal with the aftereffects of their sin. This deliberate comparison emphasizes the polarity within people and how judgment between right and wrong can be muddled just through a person’s inner thoughts. Hawthorne’s realistic characterization of these two characters creates a illusion and highlights the way his family was treated during that time period. Hester and Dimmesdale take differing paths to redeem their sin, giving the audience insight

Pearl’s existence reminds Hester of her act of passion, which the cultural morality of Boston dictates as sinful. This is evident not only because Pearl is the product of Dimmesdale and Hester’s action, but because of who Pearl is at heart. Pearl’s personality is as stated,