Hypocrisy In The Scarlet Letter

Hypocrisy In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits the atrocious sin of adultery. As a consequence, she is faced with humiliation, judgment, and self-guilt. As part of her punishment, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter ‘A’ upon her bosom for the rest of her life. The other part of her punishment is for her to stand on the scaffold with newborn baby Pearl. In addition to her prescribed penalty, Hester gets more punishment. This additional sentence comes in the form of her new daughter as she reaches her toddler years, becoming an imp. In the novel, there are two characters who one might refer to as rivals. Their names are Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth, and they both have a connection to Prynne. Dimmesdale is the

Dimmesdale is fully aware of his vile quality; and suffers greatly from self-hypocrisy. He has a guilty conscience that cannot be tamed. This is illustrated when he says, “I have laughed in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I am and what I seem” (Hawthorne 173). What he means by this is that what he seems, a holy man of God’s pure grace, contrasts with what he really is, a lying sinner. On the outside, he is a man of faith and the community is blinded from his obvious crime. In reality, his sin is the same as, if not greater than, Prynne’s. The reason he feels this way is because his sin is locked in a cage inside of him, and he wants nothing more than to let it free. In addition, Dimmesdale’s burden is so heavy that he takes it upon himself to inflict punishment. This is illustrated when the author says, “Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister [Dimmesdale], a SCARLET LETTER-the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne- imprinted in the flesh” (Hawthorne 230). He felt so guilty that he engraved his own scarlet letter onto his bare chest as an attempt to ease his guilty conscience. Dimmesdale inflicted harm to himself in several ways; it is depicted when the author says, “In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine

Chillingworth does not recognize himself as the doer of any evil. He may not be as big a hypocrite as Dimmesdale, but he has so much more evil inside of him. This is revealed when Chillingworth states, “Hadst thou sought the whole world over, there was no place so secret,-no high place nor lowly place, where thou [Dimmesdale] couldst have escaped me,-save on this very scaffold!”(226). In this quote, the author uses allusion to represent that confession is the key to all problems. Chillingworth made it look like he is something that he is not and ultimately tortured Dimmesdale for nearly seven years by pretending to be living with him to improve his health. Chillingworth’s true intention was only to torment and cause further mental and emotional agony to Dimmesdale, who he knew the secret identity of all along. The author also states, “What evil have I [Chillingworth] done the man? I tell thee, Hester Prynne, the richest fee that ever physician earned from monarch could not have bought such care as I have wasted on this miserable priest!” (Hawthorne 154). The denotation of the word monarch means a ruler or person in charge. The connotation of the word makes the reader think of riches and power. This exemplifies the thought that the treatment wasted on Dimmesdale could not be substituted, even by the riches of a monarch. Chillingworth is obviously fully aware of