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Suffering In The Scarlet Letter And Dimmesdale

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Suffering Everybody makes mistakes. Today, making mistakes has a more lenient punishment than mistakes did in the puritan community. Currently, only very serious crimes result in jail time or any punishment by the government, but this was not the case for the Puritans. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale committed a sin of adultery. This sin negatively affected many of the characters. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chillingworth, Hester, and Dimmesdale are all negatively affected by the sin that is committed (however), Dimmesdale was the person that suffered the most. Chillingworth, the husband Hester was unfaithful to, is one of the main characters that suffered because of the sin that was committed. Chillingworth knew …show more content…

There is a chance that if Dimmesdale confessed his sin when Hester was on the scaffold he might’ve not have suffered so badly. Dimmesdale was also physically tortured by Chillingworth, “... appearance of an immense letter-- the letter A-- marked out in lines of dull red light” (Hawthorne 107). Dimmesdale agrees that he should have confessed sooner because he says, “‘... behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!- at last!-- I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this women…’”(Hawthorne 174). Chillingworth tortured Dimmesdale when he was living with him as his doctor. “While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale…”(Hawthorne 97). Chillingworth tried very hard to hurt Dimmesdale, which made Dimmesdale suffer very much more than he would’ve if Chillingworth left him alone. Dimmesdale’s body slowly shut down by grief and being tortured, all because of the sin he committed. Essentially, Dimmesdale ended up dying because of the sin that was

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