Suffering In The Scarlet Letter By Arthur Dimmesdale

The Scarlet Letter has shown the many hardships and sufferings of a plethora of its characters, if not all throughout the novel. It is without a doubt that Pearl, Hester, and Dimmesdale are the characters that endure the most adversities. From Pearl watching her mother go through agony, to Dimmesdale being haunted by his sin, and to Hester being harassed by the Puritan society. Out of these three characters, Arthur Dimmesdale is most certainly the character that bears the burden the most. The effects of sin on the mind, body, and soul of Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Hester are all visible even though there are manifested in different ways for each character. Baby Pearl being without having a father is its own suffering. She is not accepted by society

He is unquestionably the character that suffers the most in The Scarlet Letter. The guilt of sin caused him to mentally and physically torture himself. “In Mr. Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh.” (141). Dimmesdale does not confess that he has committed a sin with Hester, and for a brutal seven years, he withholds his guilt inside of him. One of his worst sufferings is Pearl his own daughter rejects him. His child does not love him and washes off the kisses he gives her. Arthur Dimmesdale has the most tribulations without a doubt. He is faced to live with and tormented by not only his overwhelming guilt of sin, but moreover Roger Chillingworth who plagued him almost as much as his own conscience. “ He fancied himself given over a fiend, to be tortured with dreams and frightful thoughts, the sting of remorse and the despair of pardon.”(168) To make his suffering even worse he reverts to self-punishment in the form of fasting, consecutive sleepless vigils, and relentless studying of the