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Hester Prynne And Arthur Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter

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Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale have both committed a dreadful sin with torturous consequences. They contrast one another by their different responses to the outcome. Hester courageously accepted sin and the punishments, causing her to be content in living her life. On the other hand, Dimmesdale denied his sin, which triggered an illness that eventually leads to his death. This denial of sin induces effects of guilt that can be lethal and detrimental to a person. In chapter 17, Hester went to the forest to see if she could have a talk with Dimmesdale. When she spotted him, she asked Dimmesdale if he had found any peace. Dimmesdale replied, "None--nothing but despair!" and “Hester, I am most miserable!" Dimmesdale has felt nothing but guilt …show more content…

First, she tells him that he has aided the others in spirituality. Hester specifically said, “The people reverence thee, and surely thou workest good among them! Doth this bring thee no comfort?" (Hawthorne 172) She is trying to say that the people look up to him and that this should ease his mind. Dimmesdale then replied that it only brought him more misery. He also said, "As concerns the good which I may appear to do, I have no faith in it. It must needs be a delusion. What can a ruined soul like mine effect towards the redemption of other souls?--or a polluted soul towards their purification?” (Hawthorne 172) 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. Is there no reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works?” She now tells him that his deeds and actions are real, so they must be helping these people. In her words, his sin is being overshadowed by his works. All of these comforting do nothing and Dimmesdale guilt

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Dimmesdale suffers differently from Hester, because while she “bore it all” to the townspeople (181), his fears forced him to hide his sin, living a life full of “nothing but despair” (177). Hester, though made a social pariah of the town, has a more honest and healthy way of dealing with her sin. Because Hester is forced to face her wrongdoings under the watchful eye of her Puritan neighbors, she did not have the same guilt of secrecy that Dimmesdale did. Dimmesdale, by hiding his sin, allows himself to become a captive to his guilt. The way that Dimmesdale dealt with his guilt was unhealthy for him, both mentally and physically.

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Even though only one person that he knows of, Hester, knows his sin, he still is going insane from the misconduct he did. Dimmesdale cannot be freed of his private guilt that is driving him crazy. Dimmesdale is noticeable being damaged by the suffering of keeping his guilt private. After Hester and Dimmesdale discuss their plans to runaway together, in the woods, Dimmesdale returns to the town with a new attitude. He grasps the

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Similarly, Dimmesdale envies the closure that Hester’s punishment has brought her: “‘Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly open your bosom! Mine burns in secret!’” (151). In this dialogue, Dimmesdale articulates how differently their sin has been treated. In Hester’s case, public punishment initially brought disapproval, but eventually led her to charity and a general acceptance by members of the society.

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Hawthorne uses this imagery to show the depth of the confession and how the “spell” could be seen as him being freed from his sins, and helped into Heaven. He uses this imagery to show how even though Dimmesdale had done something so terrible for his time, he was saved and freed from his sin by God and was able to go to Heaven in the afterlife due to his confession of his growing, internal guilt. Following Dimmesdale’s final remarks, Hawthorne explains

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The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.

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Throughout the story, it is clear that he wants to confess his sin, when he is yelling at the scaffold at night but he’s too weak to do it publicly. The interactions between Hester and Dimmesdale show her hold over him because she has been publicly condemned for a sin that they had committed together. His inability to reveal and accept the truth makes him extremely weak. When Dimmesdale decides to reveal the truth during his Election Day speech, he passes away because he had waited too

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Because of the effects that Dimmesdale’s sin has on Chillingworth, the town suffers as well. The betrayal of their pastor leads them to refuse to see the truth when he pleads for the public to see his guilt at the end of the novel, and his secrecy from the people that adore him is one of the slyest and vile parts of his sin. The blind faith that the public has in their reverend is mislead by his deceit, which causes his sin to grow to a scale that Hester’s never did. Dimmesdale also harmed Pearl, by not standing with her and Hester on the day they were condemned. When she is grown, she asks, “Doth

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