Is sinning really sinful?
Is sinning really sinful? In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter there are quite a few examples of sin. However, Hawthorne depicts the same sin as one being more sinful then the other, until they redeem these sins. In this essay I will explore these examples to determine whether this thesis is true.
From the moment she conceived Pearl, Hester confessed that she had commited adultery. At frst, the townspeople looked down on Hester as just a living reminder of sin. Nevertheless, once Hester began doing charity work, “Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them”(87.) The people began to notice her more as the person she is, rather than what the scarlet “A” defined her as “The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her,--so much power to do, and power to sympathsize,-- that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by it’s original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength”(168.)
On the other hand Dimmesdale went down a different path, he did not confess his sin, this led to
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Both Dimmesdale and Hester commited the same sin of adultery, resulting in Pearl. However, because Hester confessed the sin early on, she had the rest of her life to try and change the purpose of her scarlet A to mean something more than just sin. Which she succeeds in, the people refused to interpret the scarlet letter for sin and instead for “Able.” Soon after, the people had almost forgotten what the original meaning of the scarlet letter was. On the contrary Dimmesdale doesn’t confess his sin and lives a terrible life of self-harming and guilt.Yet, in the end he confesses on the scaffold and dies at