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Arthur Dimmesdale's Internal Conflict In The Scarlet Letter

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Arthur Dimmesdale’s main internal conflict was the guilt derived from his sins. Arthur was a well known and admired minister of the Puritans. However, after committing the sin of adultery with Hester Prynne, he is guilt ridden and cannot confess his sins openly. Due to Dimmesdale’s weak nature, he is incapable of dealing with sin. As Dimmesdale’s guilt continously gets worse by the pressure of Roger, he inflicts self punishment on himself, “secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge...he kept vigils...in utter darkness” (120). Internally, Dimmesdale is gravely affected by his sin and seeks salvation. However, he knows that he has failed his own and God’s expectations of being a proper Puritan and punishes himself to cope with it. This connects …show more content…

This demonstrates Hawthorne’s theme that being the “city on the hill” expectation puts a lot of pressure on the nature of truth. Since Hawthorne is in a higher position than most puritans, majority of them look up to him as a sign of God’s grace; however, keeping this reputation has made Dimmesdale weak and unable to confess his sin properly. Lastly, Arthur often tries avoid confession and the judgment of others by waiting until he’s forced. As Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl were standing together on the scaffold, Pearl asks him if he will finally stand with them, he insists on “the great judgement day...the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!” (127). Arthur struggles with himself to willingly confess his sin. He tries to escape it by waiting until he is actually dead to be judged by God. However, by even then he is still not confessing his sin voluntarily. On the day of judgement, God requires you to confess every sin. Moreover, the theme represented through the actions of Dimmesdale was that sin is inescapable. Once the person has sinned, it is apart of them forever and the person can not do anything to get rid of

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Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both have secrets that make them look and act differently, their secrets affect their character and how they do their job. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl but he doesn 't want to face the same humiliation as Hester did for his sins. Because of his secret he self punishes and fasts, he also preaches better than he did before although his health is failing. Chillingworth’s secret is that he was the husband of Hester while he was away, before she cheated on him. Chillingworth gets uglier and uglier driven by the need to get revenge on Pearl’s father.

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Consequently, Arthur Dimmesdale is the cause of Hester Prynne's shame for he is the man whom Hester loves. No one knows he is the father of Pearl, Hester won't say and he isn't strong enough to speak up. He struggles with this knowledge that Hester is being punished and not him. The only truth that continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence on this earth was the anguish in his inmost soul, and the undissembled expression of it in his aspect, (Hawthorne 142). Being a minister of God the citizens look up to him, and he feels guilty about his hidden sin.

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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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In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” and the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the stories of two men who keep their sins secret and are hurt deeply. In The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale does not reveal his sin to the community and experiences far more pain than Hester, whose sin is revealed. Years after the original sin, Hester has healed and is accepted by the community, while Dimmesdale still feels guilty, as can be seen when he mounts the scaffold. Dimmesdale’s experience is similar to that of Reverend Hooper, who covers his face after a secret sin and is eschewed by the community. When we refuse to admit our faults, we will feel guilty

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Humans have a tendency to conform and often neglect the potential consequences of doing so. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author introduces those consequences through a respected clergyman and sinner named Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale struggles with his guilty conscience and cowardice to confess his sin which prompts him to abide by societal rules but question himself in private. Dimmesdale’s conflict between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the novel’s message that everybody must confront their sins or they will fall victim to some form of retribution.

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“What can thy silence do for him, except it tempt him— yea, compel him, as it were — to add hypocrisy to sin?” After the different approaches Dimmesdale brought forward to the community, she is being asked to reveal his name by asking what does she get from adding on to the sin. How does her hiding the name save him, from a sin he has already done? He tried in every way to get it out of her. He asks why was it okay for her lover to perform the adultery, do the sin, but then suddenly not okay for him to take on the punishment with her in front of the community.

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Erin Joel Mrs. Janosy English 2H P 5 22 October 2015 Quote Explication Dimmesdale is trying to overcome a conflict within his own soul, defying his own religion, and choosing to do wrong by keeping his sin to himself. In a theocracy type community like Dimmesdale's, God is known as the supreme civil ruler, and a crime would be known as a sin. On the other hand, Hester’s sin was made known to the public, receiving the public shame and ridicule she deserved. During the duration of time when the public knew Dimmesdale was hiding his sin, “the agony with which this public tortured him” (Hawthorne 119).

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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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Therefore, when Chillingworth gets to torturing Dimmesdale, she has already confessed her guilt over three years. Therefore, her emotional trauma is virtually nil compared to Dimmesdale’s and she also has relatively little emotional tension. Right before Hester enters the Forest with Pearl, “…Hester’s nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by largest.” (110-111) When one compares this with Dimmesdale’s sick, decrepit state at this time in the book, one can see the difference between Hester and Dimmesdale, and following that the effects of divulging guilt and concealing it.

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This only made his guilt worsen. Dimmesdale does not feel passionate when he is trying to do job. The people are only imagining getting help because his tainted soul could not possibly redeem other souls. He feels as if he is cheating those people in their faith. Hester then tries to rebuttal by saying “Your present life is not less holy, in very truth, than it seems in people's eyes.

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Dimmesdale sinned with Hester Prynne by committing adultery. Although this was terrible and looked down upon, his crime was self inflicting and done out of passion. After Hester was punished for the crime, Dimmesdale was overwhelmed with guilt and sadness. This showed that Dimmesdale was a good person

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