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Reverend Dimmesdale's Punishment In The Scarlet Letter

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Dimmesdale’s Punishment in The Scarlet Letter
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a brilliant spokesperson and a devout and wise Puritan minister in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is the lover of a woman who commits adultery, Hester Prynne. Hester, a recognizable adulteress, wears the scarlet letter and lives as an outcast. Contradicting, Reverend Dimmesdale’s sin stays hidden from the Puritan community, known only to Hester and himself. As a minister, Dimmesdale believes he should suffer from punishments the way Hester did for committing the same crime, which leads him to fall into a terrible mental and physical state. Reverend Dimmesdale suffers a greater punishment than Hester by experiencing recurring guilt, physical harm, and Chillingworth’s torment.
Dimmesdale experiences guilt after he commits adultery. As a devout Puritan minister, Dimmesdale preaches against sin. However, Dimmesdale contradicts his preaching and has an affair with Hester, a married woman. The novel begins with Hester standing on a scaffold for public shaming. The Puritans use Hester as an example of what will happen if one commits adultery. Later in the novel, Dimmesdale confesses his guilt and unbearable misery to Hester in the forest: “Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years’ …show more content…

Though he does not receive punishment from the Puritan community, he gives it to himself. He makes up for not confronting himself to the Puritan community by scourging and fasting. In addition, hallucinations make his suffering unbearable. On the other hand, Hester stands on a scaffold for public humiliation. Hester’s strong and bold personality makes the public shaming sustainable and has little effect on her. Dimmesdale’s weak nature, causing him to feel insecure and guilty, makes his punishment

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Mentally, his guilt strains his mind, which causes his physical deterioration, and the weakening of his body. As Dimmesdale finally admits his sin to the townspeople, his guilt is lifted, and he is able to release himself from his captivity. Though he deteriorated both mind and body from his guilt, by telling the townspeople of his sin, it was as if “a spell was broken” (238). He no longer needed to force himself to hide his sin, which was what was hurting him. By finally dealing with his sin in a similar way to Hester, Dimmesdale was able to free himself of his self-imposed captivity and

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Hester and Dimmesdale have both committed adultery, but Hester accepts and embraces what has happened. Alternatively, for Dimmesdale, enduring seven long years of guilt and sin are required to get him to finally reveal the truth. Taking so many years to do so shows how

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Dimmesdale’s guilt from the sin he executed, is not known to anyone besides, Roger Chillingworth and Hester. He is in panic and terror at all moments that the Puritans will discover the sin he has done. Being in such an important position in the Puritan lifestyle, as a minister, he knows the consequences for which his sin will make if publicized. He tries multiple methods to try and rid himself of the guilt. Whenever he feels threatened by the guilt he places “His hand upon his heart,” (65).

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Erin Joel Mrs. Janosy English 2H P 5 22 October 2015 Quote Explication Dimmesdale is trying to overcome a conflict within his own soul, defying his own religion, and choosing to do wrong by keeping his sin to himself. In a theocracy type community like Dimmesdale's, God is known as the supreme civil ruler, and a crime would be known as a sin. On the other hand, Hester’s sin was made known to the public, receiving the public shame and ridicule she deserved. During the duration of time when the public knew Dimmesdale was hiding his sin, “the agony with which this public tortured him” (Hawthorne 119).

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Dimmesdale starts living with Chillingworth so the doctor can keep the feeble minister ‘healthy’; the doctor, reversely, tries to make Dimmesdale feel conflicted about his morals which leads to Dimmesdale obsessively whipping himself “...on his own shoulders” and“... fast[ing]...in order to purify [his] body… rigorously...until his knees trembled beneath him[self]...” (132). He is enveloped in his sin, and cannot escape it unless he tells the truth. In fact, Dimmesdale could not stop thinking about his sin which “...continued to give Mr. Dimmesdale a real existence [which] was the anguish in his inmost soul” (133).

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Considering the townspeople’s reactions toward Hester’s sin of adultery, it can be concluded that in the Puritan era, religion was of utmost importance, and the Puritans met sins with extremely harsh punishments. Because the majority of the Puritan town viewed Hester as a disgrace, she became “Lonely . . . and without a friend on earth” (56). This made it effortless for the inhabitants of the town to continue to insult and degrade Hester because they did not care to learn her true personality. While a few civilians had sympathy for Hester, the town mostly regarded her as shameful and

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Throughout The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne exposes the blindness of the Puritan people through the treatment of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale’s external characters. Hester Prynne is labeled as an adulteress and mistreated by society because of their unwillingness to see her true character. Chillingworth, the husband of Hester, leads the town to believe he is an honorable man and skillful doctor, when his true intents root from his vindictive nature Finally, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s lover and the father of her baby, acts as the perfect man therefore the town views him as an exemplar model, while he is truly a sinner. In the novel, Hawthorne portrays Hester as a strong, resilient woman, though the members of her community

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Hester and Dimmesdale each are equivalent in the sin that they commit, but their lives and fates are different because Hester had to repent for her crimes while Dimmesdale bottled up his guilt inside. The indirect result of Dimmesdale’s concealment of the truth was Chillingworth’s torture, which played a large role in Dimmesdale’s untimely death. Chillingworth snapped when Hester did not reveal Dimmesdale’s crimes. Hester, in part, helped Dimmesdale in

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Although this is a very serious sin, Hester’s reputation is redeemable. One of the ways she can achieve redemption is by serving the punishment of being stared at by “. . . a thousand relenting eyes. . .” (Hawthorne 54) on the scaffold in the town square. By serving the socially accepted punishment, Hester is able to start redeeming her reputation in the eyes of society.

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He knows that if he reveals what he has done, then his followers will lose their respect for him. He is burdened with his sin; therefore, he inflicts pain upon himself for his wrongdoing. Dimmesdale goes as far as having vigils all night, being tortured by “diabolic shapes,” and emaciating and whipping himself. Dimmesdale punishes himself because he wants to repent for the sin that he has committed.

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Because of the effects that Dimmesdale’s sin has on Chillingworth, the town suffers as well. The betrayal of their pastor leads them to refuse to see the truth when he pleads for the public to see his guilt at the end of the novel, and his secrecy from the people that adore him is one of the slyest and vile parts of his sin. The blind faith that the public has in their reverend is mislead by his deceit, which causes his sin to grow to a scale that Hester’s never did. Dimmesdale also harmed Pearl, by not standing with her and Hester on the day they were condemned. When she is grown, she asks, “Doth

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He was the last person that people would think as a sinner. Dimmesdale was sin when he was committed adultery with Hester. He broke the law of church, but he was afraid to face the punishment and indifferent attitude from he masses. As a faithful follower, Dimmesdale also afraid the punishment of God, so he flog himself with a whip. The physical and spiral torture and the control of Chillingworth stranded him in a world that he cannot contact with others.

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After the sin was committed, the development of guilt made Hester and Dimmesdale very miserable because they could not stop thinking about what they have done. Both of the characters kept going back to that moment, feeling remorse

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In Dimmesdale not confessing and facing a punishment in the eyes of the church as well as the townspeople, causing him to take to his own means, while Hester is able to face a punishment. Dimmesdale does what he believes is right for his punishment by doing acts that damaged his mind and body. Dimmesdale, in creating his own punishment, holds vigils that last all night, fasted to the point that he barely ate anything at all, beat himself, and lost the will to live. Dimmesdale's sin stays with him throughout the book, and the readers see his mind and body deteriorate through his mysterious sickness, while the readers see Hester become a closed off outcast trying to repent. The townspeople in the book see DImmesdale's sickness, and how devoted he is to his faith and begin to believe that he is holy, and an angel sent to sent to save them, while Hester has repented and become able, as well as an

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Throughout the novel, Hester is fraught by the Puritan society and her suffering is an effect of how evil society is. Hester continues to believe that the crime she committed was not wrong and she should not be punished for it. Her desire to protect and love Dimmesdale, turn her into a stronger person and become a heroine in the book. Although society still views her as a “naughty baggage” (Hawthorne 73) and is punished for her wrongdoing, Hester never thought to take revenge on them, yet she gives everything she has to the unfortunate and leaves herself with very little. She continues to stay positive no matter what society has for her.

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