The Darkest Sinner
(INSERT HOOK) Subjected to live in antithetical seventeenth-century Boston, Hester Prynne and her secret lover, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, faced immense persecution from the self-deemed ‘pious’ Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony following their adulterous affair that resulted in a child. For a society claiming deep roots in family and unity, Puritans managed to contradict this by rather radiating the antithesis. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romantic and dramatic historical-fiction novel, The Scarlet Letter, the magnitude of the oppressive nature of sin, guilt, and retribution is challenged. Examination of scripture along with basic Christian theology and doctrine reveals that Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale did not bear the
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As a result, their own acceptance of their sins was dependent on the extent of their punishment. Hester, who was imprisoned for her adultery, faced the greatest public mortification - standing on the lonely scaffold in the unrighteous, unwarranted judgement of the equally as sinful Puritans. Eventually, however, Hester accepted her ignominy and used the internal shame that had manifested within herself as a tool to augment her value to society. Reverend Dimmesdale, aware of his publicly undisclosed sins, was forced to carry this burden of internal guilt for seven long years. Dimmesdale fully swallowed his guilt once he publicly confessed at the completion of the novel. “He turned towards the scaffold, and stretched forth his arms. ‘Hester,’ said he, ‘come hither! Come, my little Pearl!’” (Hawthorne, 235). Dimmesdale’s physical action of turning toward the scaffold and stretching out his arms corroborated not only his acceptance of Hester and Pearl as his family but also of his sin. 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