Romanticism In The Scarlet Letter

Moreover, Dimmesdale`s suffering reflect on the outside when he was sick of not confessing his truth. For example, of this is that in the book the another has shown us that Dimmesdale suffering is reflecting him on the outside that why in the chapters Dimmesdale keeps on holding on his heart on where the letter “A” is carve on this chest. Another is that when Dimmesdale was leading the church to tell the town folks about how God will be like if you did not follow in the correct way he will sin you that why Dimmesdale did not what to tell everybody about it if he did he could get killed and thought out as a minister in the church and also the townsfolks always believe that Dimmesdale is the only one that can connect to God and he cannot do

Dimmesdale’s battle with sin and guilt got the best of him in the long run. He wanted to have others forgive him before he would forgive himself. Dimmesdale lived in fear of his sin being announced and thought that hiding it would make the problem go away. He lived a hypocritical lifestyle of preaching about path the Lord has paved for you while he himself strayed from his path after he committed adultery.

Hester became more open and energetic to society, not only did she help the poor, but she also nursed those who were in ill. This lead to changing the actual meaning of the scarlet letter and the townspeople thinking differently about Hester. For example, the narrator states “The letter was a symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, - so much power to do, and power to sympathize,- that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength” (Hawthorne 146).

Dimmesdale portrays himself very ironically. He is a very well respected reverend and yet, has, for the last 7 years, worked on preaching the word of God, especially while he urges the congregation to confess openly to repent unto God. While, in reality, Dimmesdale is the one whoneeds a clean conscious. He feels like he needs to confess not only to the town but also too himself. Halfway through the novel

Dimmesdale ultimately lets his fear of a bad reputation get in the way of his true happiness and internal peace. By not confessing his sins, he harbors guilt on his conscience until the very end of his life.

Dimmesdale, before the Scarlet letter, was a most beloved Reverend, but after the Scarlet letter, it wasn't that simple. After Dimmesdale commits adultery, he faces isolation from the townspeople, who all think he is innocent. With the townspeople, the isolation is more of an internal thing within Dimmesdale. As their pastor, Dimmesdale is still responsible for their preaching; so while The whole town is condemning Hester, they are getting their spiritual fill ups from the other person in need of equal condemnation. Dimmesdale is forced to put up a facade of his emotions from his townspeople so they will not grow suspicious. The quote "No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true."(145). Shows that Dimmesdale will eventually come out but, even after he admits to the adultery, the people to not believe it to be true.

Since Dimmesdale neither confesses nor publically accepts penance for his sins, he is an “untrue man.” In this case, Hawthorne writes that men who are “untrue” will fade away and eventually die from guilt, just like

Dimmesdale lived the past seven years in misery. He suffers from his own guilt, and this guilt is gradually destroying him mentally and physically. His depression is being shown through a simile, “Without any effort of his will...to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud; an outcry that went pealing through the night...as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it...were bandying it to and fro” (Hawthorne 114). He cries out loud as his sound echoes through the night sky; this shows a very deeply hurt and emotional man, because he has to scream to let all the pain that he had kept to himself these past years. Guilt has been slowly destroying him causing him to also decline in health.

He is fixated with his own wrongdoing that he would starve and whip himself, making this as his own self-punishment. Here’s a man who is supposed to preach the good upon others while his actions does the complete opposite. In Chapter 12, The Minister’s Vigil, Dimmesdale is faced with his guilt as he is confronted by Hester and their daughter, Pearl. This is where the readers can get a grasp of how private shaming can be a challenge as compared to public shaming. As a result of Dimmesdale’s guilty conscience, he confesses his immoral sins on a scaffold, screaming with outrage and pain.

To begin with, Dimmesdale’s hidden guilt causes him to punish himself. “His inward trouble drove him to practices, more in accordance with the old, corrupted

He commits adultery with Hester Prynne, does not become discovered by the people of the town because Hester refuses to tell anyone, and suppresses his guilt up until the day he dies. Since Dimmesdale is a Reverend, he is the model for the town. Not wanting to lead his congregation astray was one reason Dimmesdale did not confess his adultery to everyone. His flock thought he would be the least among them to sin. The fact that he was a sinner weighs heavy on his conscience.

Dimmesdale is the minster of the town, which means that he has several responsibilities and he is surrounded by the idea that he should live without sin to be an exemplar of the town. This creates pressure for Dimmesdale because he understands the severity of the sin he has committed. He feels like a failure to his followers and that he is unfit to be the minster anymore and that his life has no more meaning since he betrayed God. The narrator states “…on a pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life. What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him…”, which is exactly what Dimmesdale did. He refused to confess when Hester was on the scaffold which left him to hide is

Dimmesdale is one of the respected mentors the townspeople look up to. The thing the townspeople don’t know is that he doesn’t practice what he preaches. Dimmesdale committed adultery with Hester Prynne, and if members of society found out, they would be deranged. He tried to tell them multiple times, but he just couldn’t say exactly what he had done because he was scared of letting them all down. In one of Dimmesdale’s sermons, he said, “ I am a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of the sinners, an abomination”(Hawthorne 131). Though he was trying to confess, he never actually told the townspeople the real sin he had committed. This gave all the townspeople listening the thought that they were even worse sinners than their respected minister, which is the opposite of what Dimmesdale wanted.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, a well-know Dark Romantic, employs the issues prevalent in Dark Romanticism in his novel The Scarlet Letter. These include the concepts of: guilt and sin, good and evil, and madness in the human psyche. Guilt and sin are heavily addressed in the novel, focusing on Hester’s outward versus Dimmesdale’s hidden guilt, and the sins committed by the adulterous couple and the revenge-driven Roger Chillingworth. The idea of what good and evil are is questioned in the novel. For example, the reader is led to question if Hester was right in not revealing Dimmesdale, and in turn if both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth were

    Dimmesdale on the other hand continues to suffer physically and mentally for the concealment of his sin.  Dimmesdale feels that he is safe from being condemned by Puritan society by concealing his sin, yet ironically, it eats away at his heart.  Ironically, a townsperson says to Dimmesdale, speaking of the searching out of sin, "methinks it