Guilt In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Guit has the power to make you do things you never thought of doing. It forces you to lie, hurt yourself or others, and slowly eats you up from the inside. Guilt controls you to the point where it makes you blind towards your own actions. The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows all of these characteristics of guilt through one character. Dimmesdale from the beginning of the novel till the end demonstrates how guilt destroyed him from the inside. He illustrates how he caused harm upon himself and others because guilt made him blind towards his actions. Overall, Dimmesdale shows how guilt can consume a person but later on that same person can find peace by forgiving themselves.
Before a person can deal with their mistakes,

For example, when Hester is begging the Governor to keep Pearl, she looks at Dimmesdale for help. Dimmesdale then says, “ ‘There is truth in what she says’ … with a voice sweet, tremulous, but powerful … ‘God gave her the child… is there not a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and his child?’ ” (78). Dimmesdale defended Hester because she is the mother of his child. Although if she was anyone else, he would have approved of the Governor's decision. Dimmesdale feared that if Pearl was taken away, she would have grown up not learning about his and Hester’s mistakes. The action he took in this scene demonstrates how he is starting to cope with his guilt. He is viewing his action as a way of raising Pearl without being apart of her life. Therefore, in the end of this scene he feels slightly better about how the way he approaches his

On Election Sunday, Dimmesdale told everyone from his community about his sin, he expressed himself by saying, “At last!-at last!- I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman … “ (174). The sin of adultery has caused him so much pain, but all of that ended when he confessed to being the father of Pearl. By doing so he was able to move on and have a more peaceful life. In the end Dimmesdale die with no misery. His death in a sense can be seen as God’s forgiveness because he was able to confess to his sins before