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Forgiveness In The Scarlet Letter

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Forgiveness and It’s Results In the novel The Scarlet Letter written by Hawthorne there are four main characters, Hester Prynne, Pearl Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale. They each have to come face to face with being able to forgive someone or themselves. Some were able to forgive, like Pearl Prynne but others like Roger Chillingworth could not forgive. Different outcomes occurred for each character. One Person who had to deal with forgiveness in The Scarlet Letter was Chillingworth, forgiveness was not something he was capable of doing. He had to decide whether or not he should exonerate Dimmesdale, who in fact was the man who made his wife, Hester Prynne, pregnant. In the novel, it is clear that Chillingworth never will …show more content…

She needs to determine whether or not she can forgive herself for committing adultery and letting Chillingworth torment Dimmesdale throughout the course of seven years without him knowing Chillingworth's true identity. Throughout the course of the novel Hester is not able to forgive herself for committing adultery. Hester’s inability to forgive herself is seen when the article says Hester, “ Struggled to believe that no fellow mortal was guilty like herself” (Wagenknecht 65). Something authenticated is that Hester’s inner struggle comes to an end. She arrives at the decision that she cannot forgive herself for letting Chillingworth inflict misery on Dimmesdale for seven years. We are presented with this in The Scarlet Letter when it states, “ Hester could not but ask herself, whether there had not originally been a defect of truth, courage, and loyalty on her own part, in allowing the minister to be thrown into a position where so much evil was to be forboded and nothing auspicious to be hoped” (Hawthorne 183). Hester's inability to rest peacefully is due to her ongoing feeling of disgrace for what happened between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. As punishment, she chose to return to her cottage where everything first began and live her life wearing the scarlet letter. This shows her lacking ability to forgive

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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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Throughout the book Chillingworth reminds Hester of her wrong doing an example of this is when the novel states, “As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forthwith seemed to scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red-hot. ”(Hawthorne 64) Chillingworth's efforts to please himself by making Hester feel guilty for her actions during his absence sways the way many things happen in the book, like at the end when he decides to join the voyage that Dimmesdale and Hester planned to escape

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Hester got in trouble for cheating on someone but will she be forgiven of that? Dimmesdale and Chillingworth have been treating her bad causing them some trouble. But there is reasoning behind that also. They are forgiven of their sins. They are forgiven of their sins.

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When repented by society for one’s mistake the individual will undergo a journey of redemption during which they exhibit character change and a gaining of respect from communities that shun them. In Tina Fey’s production Mean Girls and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, the characters Cady Heron and Hester Prynne are repented by society for their faulty acts. Hester and Cady undergo a journey of obtaining redemption from their peers during which they gain the respect of their community and change in character/personality within themself. Society castes off Hester Prynne for her sin of adultery.

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Many times the town people question her about who the father of the child is, but never does she give up his name because she knows the man must accept his sin himself, not by her. Hester could have killed herself because of the judgment and shame brought upon her because of her actions, but amazingly she stays strong and graciously accepts her punishment. A specific example displaying her strength appears through her lover Dimmesdale, who carries guilt for

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“(Hawthorne 109). His moral stage continues to be at stage 1 “Obedience and Punishment Orientation” because his selfishness still makes an overall reflection on his personality. He is more concerned about his own feelings than everyone around him opposed to his morality at the beginning of the novel. He expresses signs of jealousy because Pearl called out for him. Next, at the beginning of Chapter 18 after Hester has declared to Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is her real husband and he becomes upset, eventually he forgives her and sees Chillingworth as the real sinner.

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is convicted of adultery and the whole town ostracises her for her sin and the secrecy of who the father is, who is coincidentally their preacher, Reverend Dimmesdale. The town fails to find out the true identity of the father until he confesses seven years later after the birth of Pearl. While Hester is able to forgive herself with the help of her only treasure, Pearl, Reverend Dimmesdale does not forgive himself. When Rev. Dimmesdale fails to confess and forgive himself, he dooms his life forever because of the burden of his sin; but, not only did it hurt his life, it hurt Hester and Pearl and the rest of the community. Reverend Dimmesdale feels very guilty for not confessing to

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Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne exposes the blindness of the Puritan people through the treatment of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale’s external characters. Hester Prynne is labeled as an adulteress and mistreated by society because of their unwillingness to see her true character. Chillingworth, the husband of Hester, leads the town to believe he is an honorable man and skillful doctor, when his true intents root from his vindictive nature Finally, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s lover and the father of her baby, acts as the perfect man therefore the town views him as an exemplar model, while he is truly a sinner. In the novel, Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong, resilient woman, though the members of her community

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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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The townspeople “[began] to look upon the scarlet letter as a token, not of that one sin, for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since.” This quote exemplifies how sin is not a death sentence for Hester. Through hard work and charity it allowed the rigid Puritan society to see her as something different, and as someone who would not let society define who she was. Hester, thus, was not only able to change herself, but also the image in which society viewed her by working hard to benefit the public. Likewise, the scarlet letter which was supposed to represent sin was instead “fantastically embroidered with gold thread, upon her bosom.”

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However, he will not repent for his sin until he confesses. Penitence is regret for one’s wrongdoing. Dimmesdale does not feel penitence for his sins: Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years' cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am!

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After the sin was committed, the development of guilt made Hester and Dimmesdale very miserable because they could not stop thinking about what they have done. Both of the characters kept going back to that moment, feeling remorse

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The Scarlet Letter Essay Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale were two of the main sinners in The Scarlet Letter. Both characters kept their sins secrete throughout the story. These sins included adultery, revenge, and even murder. Out of the two sinners, Chillingworth was the worst, because he never felt guilt for the terrible things he was doing. Dimmesdale spent his entire life in guilt and remorse for the sins he had committed (“Who”).

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What is redemption? Redemption is the act of being saved or freed from sin. This is an important part of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” Redemption was what the characters in the book were seeking, and was the reason for many of their actions. Because of the time period and the fact the people were Puritans, sins were not tolerated nor common, so when they happened they were a huge deal.

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Throughout the novel, Hester is fraught by the Puritan society and her suffering is an effect of how evil society is. Hester continues to believe that the crime she committed was not wrong and she should not be punished for it. Her desire to protect and love Dimmesdale, turn her into a stronger person and become a heroine in the book. Although society still views her as a “naughty baggage” (Hawthorne 73) and is punished for her wrongdoing, Hester never thought to take revenge on them, yet she gives everything she has to the unfortunate and leaves herself with very little. She continues to stay positive no matter what society has for her.

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