Masquerade In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Masquerade
The Scarlet Letter is a romance written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in 1850, about the puritan society of Boston and the necessity of truth. In the beginning of this book, we see Hester Prynne, a young, Virgin Mary type figure and her baby, being hoisted up on a scaffold to be publicly ridiculed for committing a heinous sin: adultery. As a punishment she must label herself with a bright scarlet letter A. She is being made to face the truth of her sin head on and publicly. However, she does not wish the same fate for her scandalous partner and keeps his identity a secret. We later learn that her accomplice is no other than the young, up and start, dashing Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, a minister who, although in a sickly state, shows great

Being in such a public position makes it nearly impossible to admit what he has done, and as that is the first step to growing into who you are, he cannot correctly alter his mask. The pompous paint begins to crack under the weight of his lies, but every Sunday before his sermon it gets a shiny, new coat. There are so many layers that he begins to lose sight of who he is as a person. We can see that Hawthorne uses this character to portray the worst possible outcome for an untruthful soul. In reference to this Hawthorne writes “To the untrue man, the whole universe is false, -it is impalpable, -it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself, in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist,” (173). We can see that Dimmesdale begins to cease to exist. He is overwhelmed and unable to gain control of his life. The stress is increased when Chillingworth pokes around the truth and uses it to torture him. He finds the root of the minister’s evil and picks at it like a festering scab. Dimmesdale cannot stare down the truth face on and scream it to the world as Hester can, so he forces himself to carry it close to his heart where it can do the most damage. This unwillingness to tell the truth will ultimately kill him as it wears on his body and mind daily. When he finally does tell the truth, it is too late and he

Near the end of this wild ride Hawthorne imparts this advice to his reader, which sums up the message of the book, “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst can be inferred!”(311). By living through her “worst,” Hester is able to gain control of the truth of her life. She embodies this statement and becomes Hawthorne’s first success story. He shows us one of the greatest soul searching stories of all time to give us an example of how to find the truth. In addition, he gives us the success stories’ counterpart through Dimmesdale, who meets the worst fate due to an unwillingness to be