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Social Status In The Scarlet Letter

754 Words4 Pages

Throughout history, social status plays a significant role in the way people are treated. The Scarlet Letter is a novel with a clear distinction between the lives of those who are in the upper class and those in the lower class. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ancestors were firm believers in Puritanism. Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter to portray the one-sided ideology of societies that allow socioeconomic status to determine how people are treated, and as a call for change to diminish this unfair treatment. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays the disparity between the treatment of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in order to establish that it is unjust to treat people differently simply due to their social status and that …show more content…

In the beginning of the novel, when Hester Prynne stands on an scaffold as a retribution to her crime, Hawthorne creates three levels of social status: the upper-class with the well educated and the people who are associated with church, the lower class including the majority of townspeople, and the outcasts who have committed sins. Initially, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are placed in the upper class, the townspeople in the lower class, and Hester in the outcast status. However, the characters’ designation to each status is dynamic throughout the novel. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that both Chillingworth and Dimmesdale have committed sins, displaying that although they do have a high status, it does not mean that they are better than the townspeople or Hester. Due to his high-ranking title in society, Dimmesdale feels to ashamed to confess his sin which leads him to inflict harm upon himself. However, at Dimmesdale’s deathbed, when he finally confesses, he realizes that his “death [is] of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost for ever!” (Hawthorne 383). Dimmesdale finally feels the freedom when he steps down to Hester’s level and onto the scaffold. By lowering his belief if his status, Dimmesdale is able to

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Dimmesdale suffers differently from Hester, because while she “bore it all” to the townspeople (181), his fears forced him to hide his sin, living a life full of “nothing but despair” (177). Hester, though made a social pariah of the town, has a more honest and healthy way of dealing with her sin. Because Hester is forced to face her wrongdoings under the watchful eye of her Puritan neighbors, she did not have the same guilt of secrecy that Dimmesdale did. Dimmesdale, by hiding his sin, allows himself to become a captive to his guilt. The way that Dimmesdale dealt with his guilt was unhealthy for him, both mentally and physically.

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As the moving of story, the “side effect” of the hidden sin has reveal. Dimmesdale become more sick and powerless. As the end of the story, Dimmesdale concede the sin and died as the winner of the fight with hidden sin. Dimmesdale as a combination of saint and sinner, his sin is not committed adultery, but it is that he cannot face the sin and admit it. He wanted to be all perfect in the eyes of the masses, but destroyed his perfectly in the eyes of God.

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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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