Juxtaposition In Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne makes it evidently clear that the Minister, Dimmesdale, is the father of Hester Prynne's illegitimate child, Pearl. With a series of increasingly elevated indications of his fathership, Hawthorne is able to foreshadow Dimmesdale’s role in the adultery that causes Hester to live her life in solitude. As the novel entails, Hawthorne introduces Dimmesdale to readers in The Recognition, which is a slight giveaway in itself. Yet, Hawthorne describes Dimmesdale so meticulously, unlike many of the other characters, which consequently gives off that he must be a very important character in the novel. Another act that foreshadows that Dimmesdale is indeed Hester’s lover is when Hester replies to the

Dimmesdale has many tapestries strung around his house that literally depict scenes regarding adultery. This shows that he is recognizing his sin or he is just obsessed with adultery, which connects to Hester either way. Also, Pearl takes the burrs and lines them around her mother’s scarlet letter, then later on throws some burrs at Dimmesdale, symbolizing her giving him his own A. Dimmesdale also berates himself publicly as a sinner, although not announcing what his sin is, and says phrases like “It must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart” (212), which shows that he must be putting a great deal of thought into both Hester and his sin. Also, throughout the story he constantly seems to either be clutching or covering his chest pain to possibly hide an A, which is later hinted towards as Chillingworth, who has a life goal of finding out who Pearl’s father is, rips open Dimmesdale’s shirt and immediately erupts into a fit of triumph. This means that there is an actual indication, possibly a self-branded A, on his chest that he is Pearl’s father, which unravels all the previously foreshadowed hints and deems all suspicions therefore