The Guilt Of Reverend Dimmesdale In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Hester Prynne, a puritan woman living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the year 1642. She lived in a community where religion and law were almost inseparable. She is known for committing an adulterous crime that is punishable by both religion and law. After moving to Boston from England without her husband, Hester engaged in an affair and had a child named Pearl. After refusing to reveal the father of her child, Reverend Dimmesdale, she is sentenced to wear a mark of her crime on her clothing for the rest of her life. Her husband, Roger Chillingworth, finally comes to Boston, seeking vengeance against Dimmesdale. Although most of the town forgives Hester for her sin, Hawthorne suggest

During a conversation between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale, Chillingworth attempts to gather more information about Dimmesdale. However, Dimmesdale begins to grow suspicious. He wants to confess but instead, Hawthorne depicts him as “gripping hard at his breast, as if afflicted with an importunate throb of pain” (Hawthorne, 119). The Reverend was filled with so much remorse it began to ache him in the very place Hester wore her Scarlet Letter. His crime has not yet been forgiven because of the damage it is doing to his mind. Hawthorne alludes that Dimmesdale’s sin has not been forgiven because he has been lying to the people of the town. He has a committed a sin that he warns other people not to commit. Amid a conversation with Hester in the woods Dimmesdale cries “I have laughed in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am” (173). Essentially, Dimmesdale names himself a hypocrite. He presents himself to the world as a different person than he actually is. His sin is not forgiven because it has caused agony to his heart and he is left in a great deal of