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Literary analysis sinners in the hands of an angry god the people
Analysis on the scarlet letter by nathaniel hawthorne
Literary analysis sinners in the hands of an angry god the people
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In the book The scarlet letter , Nathaniel Hawthorne questions the reader by questioning whether it is okay to punish sinners since we all have committed sins. Scarlet letter takes place in massachustes in new england in the time of colonization of the new world.at the time massachustes is very religious and the church has alot of power over the people, they control almost evry aspect of their life and punish thoose who commit sins. Dimmesdale is the head of the church in salem massachusetts and he is defined by how people admired him and how people liked him, this traits affect the theme and other characters in the story because it makes dimmesdale look pure and sin free making people make wrong assumption and decisions when it come to dimmesdale. At the beginning of the book Dimmesdale is liked by his community and is well respected.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.
In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” and the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the stories of two men who keep their sins secret and are hurt deeply. In The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale does not reveal his sin to the community and experiences far more pain than Hester, whose sin is revealed. Years after the original sin, Hester has healed and is accepted by the community, while Dimmesdale still feels guilty, as can be seen when he mounts the scaffold. Dimmesdale’s experience is similar to that of Reverend Hooper, who covers his face after a secret sin and is eschewed by the community. When we refuse to admit our faults, we will feel guilty
Humans have a tendency to conform and often neglect the potential consequences of doing so. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author introduces those consequences through a respected clergyman and sinner named Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale struggles with his guilty conscience and cowardice to confess his sin which prompts him to abide by societal rules but question himself in private. Dimmesdale’s conflict between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the novel’s message that everybody must confront their sins or they will fall victim to some form of retribution.
In order to reveal Dimmesdale's sorrowful nature. Hawthorne describes the different actions the poor minister takes in order to attempt to atone for his sins such as “[fasting]” and his use of a “bloody scourge” he genuinely believed that this would help to purify himself of his sins and to relieve the burden that he was forced to bear upon his shoulders, however his attempts to atone ultimately lead to even more torment. Hawthorne discloses this by describing Dimmesdale’s visions of the “herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister” this further reveals the utter anguish that he is going through another example of this is the vision of his mother “turning her face away as she passed by” the emotional
Following his brief sense of freedom, Dimmesdale also feels that “the air was too fresh and chill to be long breathed” and he then “withdrew again within the limits of what their church defined as orthodox” (Hawthorne 102). The inner conflict within Dimmesdale as to what he truly believes in acts as a valuable example towards the muffling of one’s emotions, for Dimmesdale is indecisive as he ties himself to being a dedicated minister above even his own thinking. This see-saw of loyalty exposes that Dimmesdale also lives something akin to a double life, growing more and more withdrawn as the days go on without receiving either proper punishment for his affair or a clear sense of security that he truly belongs in the church. He has created an inimical attitude towards himself out of shame and confusion, deeply rooted in his mind and
Oftentimes, an event that seems and feels negligible can have an immense impact on a person’s psyche and physical actions. A passage from chapter 20 of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne presents this phenomenon through Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The passage shows Dimmesdale’s change from a weak, broken man to one with boundless energy as well as his change of view on life through symbolism. The change in Dimmesdale is seen immediately after he exits the forest, for he is described as having “unaccustomed physical energy” (Hawthorne, 188).
However, when Dimmesdale reveals his scarlet letter, he is then referred to by “his bright wings over the people" and "shed[ing] down a shower of golden truths upon them." (170). Hawthorne's comparison of Dimmesdale to an angel conveys the hypocrisy of puritan moral values, revealing how their strict punishments against Hester differ towards a high positioned minister. Puritans assumptions
Even in a novel full of instances of sanctimony and sin within the Puritanical community about which he writes, Nathaniel Hawthorne is careful to only ever subtly develop a homosexual subtext to the relationship that exists between doctor Roger Chillingworth and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. The Scarlet Letter’s men of science and faith are inextricably linked from the earliest chapters of the novel and spend much of the narrative in each other’s company: Chillingworth, suspicious that the guilt-ridden and sickly reverend impregnated his wife, protagonist Hester Prynne, and hellbent on vengeance as a result, inserts himself into Arthur Dimmesdale’s life as the ailing man’s primary physician. Not long thereafter, though, the relationship between
Dimmesdale is a hypocritical reverend that does not confess his sin, and Chillingworth who is the knowledgeable physician, does not treat his patient. As a result of his actions, the Clergyman’s health rapidly declined until the end where he was brought to the scaffold to ,“die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people!”(Hawthorne 383). This may seem like a strange story now but when studied and compared to the writing era it originated from, all aspects of Romanticism fit. Each main character in the story has their own unique personality full of conflicting thoughts and complex emotions. Every time Dimmesdale clenched his chest in pain or wallowed in self-pity, he did not feel only one thing, but felt several.
Whether this hidden duality is shown or not, it is always present no matter who or what the subject may be. Duality is shown to not only be a large portion of current society, but it has a massive effect on a fictional, yet realistic community from 17th century Massachusetts Bay. All throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne 's The Scarlet Letter characters and symbols representing duality have been present, taking shape in important characters such as Hester Prynne, Pearl, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale, as well as objects such as the rose bush, the scaffold, and the forest. One of these symbols is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the Puritan Priest of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Dimmesdale is seen
However, he also uses these allusions to create a new side to his narrative as evident when he describes Hester’s resilience, and to create a new element in the plot as evident in his description of Dimmesdale’s penance and need for redemption. Therefore, Hawthorne demonstrates an effective use of allusions to craft a religious and detailed narrative for The Scarlet Letter by reviewing on parallels between the Bible and the novel’s main characters. There’s more to The Scarlet Letter than these allusions though, and there are many questions to answer about this book. These questions may never be answered fully, but by reading the novel itself, we might find the right places to start searching for answers and formulate our own opinions on the matter. What’s important from this novel is the realistic warning about what might happens when an individual place themselves too highly among others, a message Hawthorne writes to warn against the fervor of transcendentalism of his time.
Penance vs. Penitence In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes of the hypocrisy of the Puritans in the 1600’s. He expresses the hardships of Hester Prynne and her adulterous lover, Authur Dimmesdale, who is also the town’s preacher. Because Reverend Dimmesdale is a very noble preacher, he has to persist with the guilt of his sin and continue to preach how one should live a holy and pure lifestyle.
Aiden Christianson Pugmire/Maack 11th Grade ELA 1/10/2023 Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” is a novel talking about the puritan lifestyle, and how seriously they took their society. This story delves into themes of “hypocrisy” and “sin”, the biggest offender being Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale is the biggest hypocrite in this story, he committed adultery alongside Hester, but he stayed anonymous, keeping his job as the Puritan minister. He kept preaching about Puritan beliefs even though he himself was a sinner.
A Reader’s Ambivalence of Roger Chillingworth A successful novel is able to make readers feel a certain way about characters: a liking or disliking, a desire to succeed or not succeed, and anything in between. After seizing the reader’s feelings, the author has the potential to change them over the course of the book. There is also the feeling of ambivalence, which is, “the state of having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone.” In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, some readers assign this emotion to Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth is a character that readers feel ambivalent about, which is cultivated by Hawthorne to further the plot and develop characters.
