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.
Arezu Lotfi Mr. Burd, Block A American Lit 11 November, 2015 Fight or Flight With the inner struggle of guilt, a person can either be redeemed or destroyed. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne Hester Prynne is ridiculed publicly by the Puritan community for adultery. Mr. Dimmesdale, the man Hester cheats with is a young minister in the town, and hides his sin from the community. Together the two have a daughter named Pearl, that Hester raises.
The huge attack of Iraq on the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001 left an everlasting impact on the US. On this day many fatalities occurred and much sadness fell upon the world. The first plane of terrorist flew into the North Tower, with a couple of minutes between the second plane flew into the South Tower. The effects of this disaster on the United States were many, including the immediate aftermath/roughage, the airlines, the economy, and the ongoing wars.
Throughout the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates the Puritan community as judgemental. Naturally, humans attempt to hide their mistakes and imperfections from the world. The protagonists of the story battle with concealing their feelings of shame from the town. Hawthorne shows that self-isolation will inevitably lead to the destruction of one’s character, suggesting that those who admit to their sins are able to thrive. He accomplishes this by contrasting character changes between Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth, and Hester Prynne.
“And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system” (Hawthorne 174). In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale serves as the holiest person many people meet in their moral lifetime, and as the purest embodiment of God’s word. However, Dimmesdale has a wounding secret, a cancer, that tears his soul apart throughout his time in America. Dimmesdale falls prey to sin in a moment of passion with Hester, resulting in her condemnation by the townspeople, and the birth of their child, Pearl. For years, Dimmesdale’s life is defined by an internal conflict - his job demands his purity in the eye of the townspeople, but he desires the acceptance of herself that Hester achieves through her sin being made public.
One spontaneous but significant mistake made by Arther Dimmesdale caused him to live the rest of his life crawling with guilt. Arthur Dimmesdale, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, had an affair with a married woman, and that crime ruined the lives of almost everyone in the novel. The Scarlet Letter remains a classic to this day because it emphasizes harsh penance which highlights the difference between the treatment of sinners today and those during the 17th century. The way Puritans view sin and guilt cause Dimmesdale’s life to come to an unfortunate end.
The driving maxim of the story, “The Scarlet Letter,” is that recognising and dealing with our weaknesses makes us stronger. Hester Prynne embraces her scarlet letter and her child, the symbols of her sin, and in turn it allows her to grow and be embraced by the townspeople. Reverend Dimmesdale, however, keeps his sin concealed within him, his guilt consumes him and only made him weaken throughout the years to the point of his death. The town as a whole is portrayed to be a negative place, and only becomes better, seeming when they embrace the town adulterer, Hester, not as a sin, but as an able member of the community.
There are many changes in peoples character in the scarlet letter, one of those characters is Arthur Dimmesdale. The sin Dimmesdale committed was great, he slept with a woman who was married. Hester became pregnant and admitted her sin, while Dimmesdale did not. This causes him to have a great deal of stress and guilt come over him. Which he, being a puritan minister makes it worse.
The book “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a complex novel that has underlying themes of sin and the responsibility for sin. The novel takes place in a Puritanical society, but two people, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, fornicate with each other, even though Hester is married to someone else. Only Hester is punished, so Dimmesdale keeps his guilt inside, not revealing it to anyone. Hester’s husband, Chillingworth, then proceeds to ruin Hester’s partner in crime, corrupting his soul and being the ultimate cause for his death. Hester, on the other hand, leads a relatively happy life after she had repented for her sin.
Hester Prynne, the Worst Sinner Three different people, all with different stories but all have something in common; they’re all sinners but the question is who is the biggest sinner? In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many characters are portrayed as sinners like Dimmesdale, Hester, and Chillingworth. But overall the biggest sinner in the story was Hester Prynne and there are many reasons for it. Obviously the reason for the scarlet letter, she was an adulteress. Hester caused many problems with people in the town including the most holy man Dimmesdale and a man that should've never been involved, Chillingworth.
The seven deadly sins are defined below. 1. Pride- the act of being proud in an arrogant or conceited way 2. Envy-
Hester’s adultery is a superb example of lust, another of the sins represented in The Scarlet Letter. Dictionary.com defines lust as an intense desire, usually food, money, power, fame, or sex. When Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, sends her ahead of him to Boston, she has an affair with the town minister Reverend Dimmesdale. The affair leads to Hester giving birth to her child, Pearl.
Because of the effects that Dimmesdale’s sin had on those living in his society, his sin is the greatest of all those presented in the novel, as illustrated by Hawthorne through Dimmesdale’s interactions with others. Because, unlike Hester, Dimmesdale hides his sin from the
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores recurring themes of suffering surrounding the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale both commit adultery with each other, and, as a result of this, both experience gruesome and occasionally unbearable forms of suffering. Though they undergo different forms of pain, both of their experiences are highly reliant on how the Puritan society treats them. Hester 's pain stems from the shame and estrangement she receives from the community, while Dimmesdale’s is due to the reverence with which the community regards him. Although, in spite of the fact that both Hester and Dimmesdale receive harsh penalty for their sin, by the end of the book, Hawthorne shows how their suffering is, in fact, the key to their salvation.
