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What Are The Effects Of Sin In The Scarlet Letter

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Sin is defined as an wrongful act considered to be a transgression against divine law. Big or small, everyone has sinned at one point in their life. However, a person's response to sin is what really matters and will have lasting effects on that person's life. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores how the different effects of sin play key roles as different themes in the book. He uses 3 different characters to show the different effects of sin Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth.
From the beginning of the story we learn that Hester is the first person who openly admits her role in the original sin of adultery. Hawthorne uses the character Hester to show the effect of acceptance to sin. In chapter 13 of the book Hawthorne says , “Some …show more content…

In the book the townspeople say "there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the more often they looked upon him” (Hawthorne 119). The townspeople notice this in Chillingworth the more time he spends with Dimmesdale. The reason he spends so much time with Dimmesdale is because he suspects him of being Hester's secret lover and seeks revenge on that person. “Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man's faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil's office” (Dodge). He gets the title of being the devil because of his constant need for revenge. For years he chooses to seek revenge on Hester and does whatever means possible to try and accomplish that. The townspeople slowly begin to notice the evil appearance he now has. “The fact that he is such a highly learned man eventually makes him all the more subtle, all the more cunning, and all the more dangerous. The fact that he is so intelligent also makes him all the more responsible for the sinful path he chooses to pursue and thus all the more spiritually self-destructive” (Evans). Chillingworth chooses his own path of revenge and it consumes his entire life. After Dimmesdale dies, Chillingworth no longer has a victim or reason to live and as a result dies shortly after. As the reader you learn that if you choose the path of revenge it will consume your entire life and will have dreadful and long-lasting effects in your life, just like it did with

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