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The Scarlet Letter Arthur Dimmesdale's Psychological Identity

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Psychological Identity
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel, ‘The Scarlet Letter’, Hawthorne demonstrates the physiological impact that others and our own person can make on us. He uses his psychological standpoint to make a character in power who comes to be psychosomatic and has a general phobia to conform to the pure society he thinks he knows; this unconscious motivation, eventually leads to his demise. But he also makes a character that is the opposite (In many different ways) to show the correlation effect that actions can have on one's self. The women fights and does not conform, she has to change the way she thinks and see many different things to compensate what is missing in her life, and what was taken from her. The actions taken by these characters in the book determined many physiological factors attributing to them as a character.
Arthur Dimmesdale is one of the main characters in the book that can be looked at in a variety of ways physiologically. In this quote “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 had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office. He won it, indeed, in great part …show more content…

She shows the embodiment of the later meaning of the scarlet letter “Able”. She has to overcome the same adverse situations that the Reverend has to, but has a different outlook because she sees the sin in everybody “purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne’s” (Ch 5) and this made her physiological outlook unchanged after she was discommunicated from society in a way. She had to make herself see everything differently so she could do the right thing in her eyes, not everybody

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Dimmesdale and Hester suffers because of the sin they did. Dimmesdale feels guilt even though he never confesses that he is the farther. He would go to the scaffold at night and stand there screaming trying to get the people to come outside to see him but it was just all in his head when she would stand on the scaffold during the day with the red A on her chest she felt guilt even though she would not tell anyone who the farther is and for having an affair while her husband was missing for years. For example, Dimmesdale does not want to confess about his sin because he does not want to face the consequences. This is illustrated when Dimmesdale says, “then and there before the judgment-seat, thy mother and thou, and I must stand together” (Dimmesdale 139).

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To begin, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes pathos throughout his writing to imprint the importance of individual conscience into the reader 's mind. Hawthorne begins the book by having the reader pity the main character, Hester Prynne, as she is a young, husbandless, mother in a society that shames her for her unfortunate circumstances: “haughty as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung in the street for them all to spurn and trample upon” (Hawthorne, 53). The consistent misfortune of Prynne evokes emotion in the reader and stresses the weight of her decisions. Prynne manages her way through such a hostile society -“Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly on your bosom” (Hawthorne, 188)- in a way that is metaphorically applicable to the real world, allowing the reader to truly connect and understand the character for who they are.

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores recurring themes of suffering surrounding the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale both commit adultery with each other, and, as a result of this, both experience gruesome and occasionally unbearable forms of suffering. Though they undergo different forms of pain, both of their experiences are highly reliant on how the Puritan society treats them. Hester 's pain stems from the shame and estrangement she receives from the community, while Dimmesdale’s is due to the reverence with which the community regards him. Although, in spite of the fact that both Hester and Dimmesdale receive harsh penalty for their sin, by the end of the book, Hawthorne shows how their suffering is, in fact, the key to their salvation.

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