Keeping secrets gives you stress and guilt. A doctor known as Anita E. Kelly works at University of Notre Dame for psychology examined and took notes about secrets. She discovered that keeping things to yourself do show more stress, anxiety, and depression along with overall pain and aches throughout the body. She concluded that “secretive people tend to be sick people.” In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dimmesdale is terrified of being shamed by the townspeople and does not confess; leading to the nature of guilt. The structure of the novel shows self-condemnation that’s brought upon few townspeople. Although, townspeople did experience culpability, Arthur Dimmesdale experienced it in a more miserable way than others.
In chapter 11, The
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Hester and Dimmesdale are isolated by the town and the townspeople, and have a talk. She asks if he has found peace with himself..his reply, “None! -nothing but despair.” (Hawthorne 158) He then goes on how his guilt is far worse than Hester’s. “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly on your bosom! Mine burns in secret!” (Hawthorne 159) The dialogue clarifies that from all the good deed Hester has done such as helping the poor and being pure on the inside and outside, the townspeople start to look at the A differently. “The letter was the symbol of her calling. Such helpfulness was found in her, -so much power to do, the power to sympathize, -that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said it meant that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength.” (Hawthorne 134) Hester is now comfortable and open to her beautifully embroidered letter, where as Dimmesdale is still hiding from his sin. Instead Dimmesdale cares what the townspeople view him as, considering he is a minister and doesn’t fess up and to be right with God. The guilt builds up all inside him that leads to