People in life go through many hardships and challenges, but it is in the way we handle those hardships in which our true character is shown. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, the author Nathaniel Hawthorne shows his audience many ways to people interpret hardships, and some people do not take them very well. For instance the Reverend Dimmesdale. Arthur Dimmesdale 's believes his actions of self-punishment and sin created a world in which he could no longer live a life of truth and holiness. Dimmesdale was a devout Puritan, and because of how hard they were on themselves he believed that he can no longer live a life of happiness. His despair was inflicted upon him once he committed adultery with Hester Prynne and decided to keep it secret.“While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul…”(Hawthorne 117). The pain came from deep within Dimmesdale, and he believed that one sin can destroy his whole life. Puritanism is now looked upon as one of the hardest religions because of their strictness in their ways of life. They truly believed that if they sinned they would be looked at as if they were scum in the eyes of the church, and this was exactly how Dimmesdale saw himself. He felt so much hatred towards himself because the townspeople thought he was this great man and they praised him, while they were being deceived and lied to. His views of puritanism were almost like a pestilence that will never go away, and would always