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Arthur Dimmesdale Quotes

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Arthur Dimmesdale: Inside His Own Version of Hell

In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky spoke, “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, a rounded character such as Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, displays vital roles in the novel: a highly regarded Reverend in a Puritan society and the father of protagonist Hester Prynne’s child, Pearl. Through the well-written and three-dimensional character of Arthur Dimmesdale, Hawthorne exhibits the themes of guilt and suffering. emotional instability and physical appearances suffer throughout the entire novel. Dimmesdale’s inability to love those he wishes to, due to the high standards of the Puritan community, causes him to …show more content…

His form grew emaciated; his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart, with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain.

The suffering from his guilt has intensity that it has begun to directly affect him physically. From the passage above in chapter nine, He decaying physical features have an “emaciated” and “paleness” to the face. The grabbing of his heart points out his internal struggle of his soul aching for redemption.

Dimmesdale’s suffering from his guilt will lead to his mental instability. His madness derives from his inability to let free of his burden of sin. Later on, the townspeople become aware of his decline in health when his preachings become more solemn and quiet due to his lack of strength. The people believed that his suffering and sickness was a trial sent from God to prove his worth. This caused him even more woes and tribulations than his soul could manage. The deception led him to feel suffer and guilt tenfold in chapter …show more content…

... He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he was.

His deception over the people increases his stress level which add onto his decline of health.

Dimmesdale’s suffering and guilt drives him to physically abuse himself. His mental instability needed to find an outlet to release his inner struggle, his turmoil. The guilt and suffering he felt so, lead him to whip himself and bleed through his clothes; he laughed while doing so, in the privacy of his home. In result, he formed a gruesome bloody wound on his chest. Dimmesdale’s bloody chest is the holds the same symbolic meanings as Hester Prynne’s embroidery scarlet letter. While Hester is able to publicly display hers, he harbors his darkest secret on his bloody whipped chest in chapter nine:

In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly, because of that bitter

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863 Words | 4 Pages

Dimmesdale’s decision to hide his sin was truly killing him from inside. He got weaker, more fragile, and pale and his suffering began to turn out to be more agonizing. The decision he makes not tell his sin to the Puritan community literally destroys him. In the end, he dies from a heart problem. This indicates that heart disease is a symbol of emotional distress.

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1158 Words | 5 Pages

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.

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588 Words | 3 Pages

Within the “Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Dimsdale to show how hiding a sin can destroy a person's life . Dimmesdale's character developed dramatically through the 7 year time period. His character traits such as religion pruty, respect ,changes ,and tragic hero transforms throughout the story . Primarily, Dimmesdale’s religion is a main component in his life .He is a minister which automatically grants him to heaven. The fear he has with god keeps him a well grounded person.

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935 Words | 4 Pages

Instead, he climbed on the scaffold immediately in an attempt for instant relief from his persistent guilt. His plea for instant relief manifested itself in the release of “an outcry that went pealing through the night.” Finally, when Dimmesdale receives a chance to be free once and for all, he abolishes it as well as all hope of freedom from his chains of guilt. On Reverend Wilson’s way home from Governor Winthrop’s deathbed, he treads right past the scaffold upon which Dimmesdale stands. Unsurprisingly, he did not speak a word to expose his position, and Dimmesdale remained anonymous in the most public location in town.

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516 Words | 3 Pages

Arthur Dimmesdale was the town minister in The Scarlet Letter, a story of a young woman who committed adultery and faced the consequences, such as wearing a scarlet “A” on her chest. Dimmesdale was a very interesting character because he was very religious but also committed a sin that haunted him everyday. He also happened to be the man who was involved in the young woman’s adultery. He was never convicted, however he still faced the consequences everyday. Dimmesdale was a man of God.

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1210 Words | 5 Pages

The oxymoron of death and celebration often occurred in Puritan societies as Puritans viewed public punishment and executions as joyful entertainment. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne examines the concept of guilt and how it negatively affects the human soul. As he reveals a dark and gloomy Puritan society, Hawthorne introduces Hester Prynne, mother of young Pearl, who has recently committed adultery and is being publicly shamed for her punishment. Betwixt and hidden beneath this conflict, is Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s partner in crime, who struggles with the guilt of his sin. As the town begins to forgive Hester Prynne, Dimmesdale’s distraught soul causes his physical and mental health to decline.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

In the book The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrated Dimmesdale suffering and regret over the years that build him up and lead him to many obstacles and challenges that killed him in the inside. Also, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the agony of Dimmesdale`s conscience as his guilt that is eating away at him until he confesses. In addition, Dimmesdale’s faces many obstacles and challenges that killed him and eat him from the inside. For example, of a challenge that he faces is not confessing to Hester Prynne up front to the townsfolks that he was Hester partner in the affairs. Another example is that when Hester walk up on stage and confess that she was responsible for the adultery and while she was talking, she has

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631 Words | 3 Pages

Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale changes

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693 Words | 3 Pages

Dimmesdale’s feelings were clearin that he explained that “it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart”(93). Dimmesdale said that once the extra sin of concealing the original sin is gone the load on the conscience lessens relieving the guilt and suffering. Hester did not have these additional burdens of guilt and suffering as Dimmesdale

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523 Words | 3 Pages

Dimmesdale starts living with Chillingworth so the doctor can keep the feeble minister ‘healthy’; the doctor, reversely, tries to make Dimmesdale feel conflicted about his morals which leads to Dimmesdale obsessively whipping himself “...on his own shoulders” and“... fast[ing]...in order to purify [his] body… rigorously...until his knees trembled beneath him[self]...” (132). He is enveloped in his sin, and cannot escape it unless he tells the truth. In fact, Dimmesdale could not stop thinking about his sin which “...continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence [which] was the anguish in his inmost soul” (133).

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1154 Words | 5 Pages

While Dimmesdale’s mental state could be partially blamed on the repressiveness of his environment there is no one other than Dimmesdale to blame his physical torture on. He keeps a whip in his locked closet and often “plie[s] it on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself” (Hawthorne 120). Dimmesdale has become so mentally detached from himself that he now feels the need to punish his mind through punishing his body. This separation of mind and body is causing him to feel a lose of control only making him want to whip himself harder to give himself a temporary feeling of control. Dimmesdale also often puts his hand on his heart which is thought to be a symbol of how his love for Hester is causing his heart pain.

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604 Words | 3 Pages

He knows that if he reveals what he has done, then his followers will lose their respect for him. He is burdened with his sin; therefore, he inflicts pain upon himself for his wrongdoing. Dimmesdale goes as far as having vigils all night, being tortured by “diabolic shapes,” and emaciating and whipping himself. Dimmesdale punishes himself because he wants to repent for the sin that he has committed.

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1404 Words | 6 Pages

Because of the effects that Dimmesdale’s sin has on Chillingworth, the town suffers as well. The betrayal of their pastor leads them to refuse to see the truth when he pleads for the public to see his guilt at the end of the novel, and his secrecy from the people that adore him is one of the slyest and vile parts of his sin. The blind faith that the public has in their reverend is mislead by his deceit, which causes his sin to grow to a scale that Hester’s never did. Dimmesdale also harmed Pearl, by not standing with her and Hester on the day they were condemned. When she is grown, she asks, “Doth

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686 Words | 3 Pages

The Hidden Sin and The Revealed Sin As humans, we live in the that are brimming with sins and evil desire. As the creator of all the creatures, God, sent his only son to save the people from the control of devil. The only thing we have to do is to acknowledge our mistake. Bible teach us that we should tell the truth to God and your neighbors, and God will forgive you. But people are worse, they not only hide the sin and their evil behaviors but also try to deny it.

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Two of the main characters with many similarities as well as differences is Hester Prynne and Rvd. Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale are both characters in the book that had their identities set up in the beginning of the story, within the first 4 chapters. Hester and Dimmesdale are the parents of Pearl, who they had in an act of adultery and sin in the eyes of the townspeople. This book goes through the story of Hester and Dimmesdale's punishments, as well as repentance.

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