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Summary Of Zoellick's 'Mistakes In The Scarlet Letter'

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Former president of the World Bank Robert Zoellick says this about making mistakes: “All of us make mistakes. The key is to acknowledge them, learn, and move on. The real sin is ignoring mistakes, or worse, seeking to hide them.” Zoellick states that ignoring or attempting to conceal mistakes is much worse than just accepting the mistake. This fits really well with one of the themes of the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne which is that certain sins can be worse or better than others. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne presents sin as something that has several tiers and can vary in severity. This is indicated by society's eventual acceptance of Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale's intense self-judgement, and Roger Chillingworth's …show more content…

In puritan society, adultery is a severe sin worthy of heavy punishment. Despite receiving the harsh sentence of having to wear a scarlet letter A on her chest for the rest of her life, Hester’s sin is the least of those of the main characters in the novel. In chapter five, Hawthorne says this of Hester, “Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast, ⏤at her, the child of honorable parents, ⏤at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, ⏤at her, who had once been innocent, ⏤as the figure, the body, the reality of sin” (71). Because of her crime of …show more content…

In fact, the guilt of Reverend Dimmesdale seemed to magnify as time went on. Reverend Dimmesdale is exalted to a pious standard by the people of Boston but he is far from the perfect pastor that they think of him as. “They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness. They fancied him the mouth-piece of Heaven’s messages of wisdom, and rebuke, and love” (129). The truth is that Dimmesdale is Hester Prynne’s secret lover, the father of her daughter Pearl, and her co-conspirator in adultery. After seven years have passed, Arthur Dimmesdale has not confessed his sin to anyone and his pain, although different from Hester’s, has not subsided. “While

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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.

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In the short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” and the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the stories of two men who keep their sins secret and are hurt deeply. In The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale does not reveal his sin to the community and experiences far more pain than Hester, whose sin is revealed. Years after the original sin, Hester has healed and is accepted by the community, while Dimmesdale still feels guilty, as can be seen when he mounts the scaffold. Dimmesdale’s experience is similar to that of Reverend Hooper, who covers his face after a secret sin and is eschewed by the community. When we refuse to admit our faults, we will feel guilty

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Humans have a tendency to conform and often neglect the potential consequences of doing so. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author introduces those consequences through a respected clergyman and sinner named Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale struggles with his guilty conscience and cowardice to confess his sin which prompts him to abide by societal rules but question himself in private. Dimmesdale’s conflict between outward conformity and inward questioning contributes to the novel’s message that everybody must confront their sins or they will fall victim to some form of retribution.

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Dimmesdale remembered all th pain and embarrassment Hester had felt on the scaffold where she was punished for the sin she had committed. He goes to the scaffold and lets the guilt build up. “And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his breast, right over his heart. ” Not just the guilt of himself and what he had done, but of what Hester had gone through and kept his secret all along.

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This demonstrates Hawthorne’s theme that being the “city on the hill” expectation puts a lot of pressure on the nature of truth. Since Hawthorne is in a higher position than most puritans, majority of them look up to him as a sign of God’s grace; however, keeping this reputation has made Dimmesdale weak and unable to confess his sin properly. Lastly, Arthur often tries avoid confession and the judgment of others by waiting until he’s forced. As Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl were standing together on the scaffold, Pearl asks him if he will finally stand with them, he insists on “the great judgement day...the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!” (127).

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We are all sinners, no matter how hard we try to hide our faults, they always seem to come back, one way or another. Written in the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows us Hester Prynne and how one sin can change her life completely. Hester Prynne changes a great deal throughout The Scarlet Letter. Through the view of the Puritans, Hester is an intense sinner; she has gone against the Puritan way of life committing the highest act of sin, adultery. For committing such a sinful act, Hester must wear the scarlet letter while also having to bear stares from those that gossip about her.

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Dimmesdale is fully aware of his vile quality; and suffers greatly from self-hypocrisy. He has a guilty conscience that cannot be tamed. This is illustrated when he says, “I have laughed in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I am and what I seem” (Hawthorne 173). What he means by this is that what he seems, a holy man of God’s pure grace, contrasts with what he really is, a lying sinner. On the outside, he is a man of faith and the community is blinded from his obvious crime.

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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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In the Bible the number seven, the same number of years Dimmesdale suffered, represents completion. Following his confession, Dimmesdale is finally consumed by the manifestation of his guilt and suddenly dies. This raises question as to whether Dimmesdale’s intense self-penance was more intolerable than Hester’s public shaming. Although the enormity of his grief

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These self-penances failed to relieve Dimmesdale of his overwhelming guilt, consequently leading Dimmesdale to make a final public confession at the scaffold. Over the course of the three scaffold scenes, Dimmesdale changes from cowardly guilt and

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To most people, it is common knowledge that sin of any kind is bad and worthy of punishment, but not all sin is created equal. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter discusses various types of both sin and punishment through the story of Hester Prynne, her lover Arthur Dimmesdale, and her husband Roger Chillingworth. Hester and Dimmesdale commit adultery, and once she becomes pregnant and is discovered she is faced with harsh condemnation and isolation from the townspeople in their mid-17th century Puritan community. Dimmesdale conceals his unlawful relationship with Hester to the town, which causes him great moral pain.

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His novel The Scarlet Letter expresses this very idea by exposing the follies of mankind and the potentially detrimental effects of sin through Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth

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In the novel “Scarlet Letter” the idea and concept of sin is explored. Sin is one of those untouchable and unaccepting acts in Puritan society, but throughout the book Hawthorne’s perspective and liberal opinion on sin is shown to readers. Hypocrisy is seen throughout the book with the actions of Puritans themselves and their beliefs. It is a sin that is more hidden, complicated, and less physical however it is quite prominent in this novel and its society. Hawthorne portrays a moderate way of dealing with sin; closer to readers of this time and the teachings of Islam.

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By choosing to have an affair even though she was married, Hester created a life for herself that was filled with “guilt, sinkings of heart, and misfortune” because of her choice to disobey her religious morals (Hawthorne 150). Although she was extremely embarrassed of her actions, believing that she was even unworthy of death, Hester forced herself to live beyond her tragic situation and use it to grow as a person and strengthen her view on standing against the Puritan probity that the town was based upon. In order to punish her, the town forced Hester to wear a scarlet “A” upon her breast, which was meant to represent a “badge of shame” (Hawthorne 150). Through the scarlet hue of the “A”, as well as it being located above Hester’s heart, Hawthorne was able to reference the symbol of a heart that he consistently used throughout the book to describe her mentality. At this point in Hester’s life, the ignominious letter upon her breast symbolized “drops of bitterness” and guilt beginning to fill her heart.

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The Scarlet Letter Essay Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale were two of the main sinners in The Scarlet Letter. Both characters kept their sins secrete throughout the story. These sins included adultery, revenge, and even murder. Out of the two sinners, Chillingworth was the worst, because he never felt guilt for the terrible things he was doing. Dimmesdale spent his entire life in guilt and remorse for the sins he had committed (“Who”).

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