Brandon Volmer SLEssay English 11 Period 3 16 November 2017 Underlying Truths Have you ever seen or heard of someone you thought was genuine do something evil? In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many characters are prime examples of this. All of these characters are hiding a secret in some way throughout the novel. The Scarlet Letter took place in the 17th century in Boston, Massachusetts. The protagonist of this novel, Hester Prynne, along with the other characters has light and dark moments throughout the story. Light and dark imagery, alluding to the larger conflict between good and evil, is present throughout the novel in the characters of Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth. Hester had been …show more content…
During the procession on Election Day, Dimmesdale showed himself in a different manner than he usually did. The people observed that, “never, since Mr. Dimmesdale had first set his foot on the New England shore, had he exhibited such energy as was seen in the gait and air with which he kept his pace in the procession…his strength seemed not of the body” (Hawthorne 217). Dimmesdale had a certain spiritual strength in him that he seemed angelic. The readers believe that he had this strength because he was excited to know the secret that Hester hid from him for so long. He was also ready to leave the colony with the woman he loved and start a new life in a new world. Although he seemed very angelic at this time, shortly before the procession, right after he had returned from the forest, he went through a very dark period. “At every step he was incited to do some strange, wild, wicked, thing or other, with a sense that it would be at once involuntary and intentional” (Hawthorne 198). Dimmesdale had to use his most careful self-control in order to refrain himself from making blasphemous comments to the deacon, an eldest female of the church, a sister, and some Puritan children. He thought that maybe he was going through such a dark moment because of the fact that he was running away with Hester. Later, the witch appeared to him and said that she had seen him in the forest. Dimmesdale then worried that maybe he had signed a contract with the devil in the