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Who Is Dimmesdale's Decay In The Scarlet Letter

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“And the infectious poison of that sin had been thus rapidly diffused throughout his moral system” (Hawthorne 174). In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale serves as the holiest person many people meet in their moral lifetime, and as the purest embodiment of God’s word. However, Dimmesdale has a wounding secret, a cancer, that tears his soul apart throughout his time in America. Dimmesdale falls prey to sin in a moment of passion with Hester, resulting in her condemnation by the townspeople, and the birth of their child, Pearl. For years, Dimmesdale’s life is defined by an internal conflict - his job demands his purity in the eye of the townspeople, but he desires the acceptance of herself that Hester achieves through her sin being made public. His …show more content…

Dimmesdale attempts to inform his congregation of his terrible sin: “He had told his hearers that he was altogether vile, a viler companion of the vilest, the worst of sinners, an abomination, a thing of unimaginable iniquity... They [his congregation] heard it all, and did but reverence him the more” (114). Dimmesdale truly reveals the fact of his unholiness, but fails to reference any details to his congregation. They paint him in an even holier light, and understand that only a true saint like Dimmesdale can call himself unholy in this way. However, Dimmesdale’s conscience is wrecked, because he is unable to reveal his sin, despite his multiple public attempts, and his anguish lingers. Similarly, Dimmesdale envies the closure that Hester’s punishment has brought her: “‘Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly open your bosom! Mine burns in secret!’” (151). In this dialogue, Dimmesdale articulates how differently their sin has been treated. In Hester’s case, public punishment initially brought disapproval, but eventually led her to charity and a general acceptance by members of the society. However, Dimmesdale’s strong conscience will not rest while his sin goes unpunished, leaving him with a burning desire for both penalty and disclosure. It is illustrated that Dimmesdale’s conscience is plagued after his sin, and this distress intensifies once he learns of Hester’s new place in society, as a matronly figure. Dimmesdale’s hiding of sin and internalization of guilt damages his conscience and tears apart his

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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 order to reveal Dimmesdale's sorrowful nature. Hawthorne describes the different actions the poor minister takes in order to attempt to atone for his sins such as “[fasting]” and his use of a “bloody scourge” he genuinely believed that this would help to purify himself of his sins and to relieve the burden that he was forced to bear upon his shoulders, however his attempts to atone ultimately lead to even more torment. Hawthorne discloses this by describing Dimmesdale’s visions of the “herd of diabolic shapes, that grinned and mocked at the pale minister” this further reveals the utter anguish that he is going through another example of this is the vision of his mother “turning her face away as she passed by” the emotional

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Reverend Dimmsdale’s development through the text of “The Scarlet Letter” was that of positivity and peace. Dimmsdale was the secret father of Pearl and the secret lover of Hester Prynne. He was the reason for Hester’s torment and it showed on him through the book. Dimmsdale’s progression through “The Scarlet Letter” was a positive one because in the beginning he was unempathetic, in the middle of the book he was guilt-ridden and sympathetic, and at the end he was joyful and relieved. At the beginning of the story, Reverend Dimmsdale was introduced as a judge at Hester Prynne’s public shaming.

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“the magistrates are god fearing gentlemen ,but merciful church (Hawthorn p 49” Dimmesdale is an extremely religions man which makes committing a sin a suspenseful shocker. His job as a minister is to teach and encourage people to do good things in the eyes of god . He is an interpreter of the bible , DImmesdale's sin causes him to be a sinful man . “ the puritan of him which the devil claimed, and through he lost the win the rest (Hawthorne 19) . His religion is being weakened by the guilt of his secret sin.

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631 Words | 3 Pages

At the beginning of the book, Dimmesdale attempts to tell his followers of his adulterous sins in his sermons, but “They heard it all, and did but reverence him more… ‘The godly youth!’ said they among themselves, ‘The saint on earth!’” (134). Here, despite Dimmesdale’s efforts, the crowd does not understand that he is trying to share a great sin with them. But later in the novel Dimmesdale climbs the scaffold in the center of the town, and confesses his guilt to the townspeople, and in response “[the people’s] great heart was thoroughly appalled, yet overflowing with tearful sympathy, as knowing [of] some deep life-matter - which, if full of sin, was full of anguish and repentance likewise…” (238-239).

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Reverend Dimmesdale’s physical condition diminishes the longer he keeps his sin a secret. He feels so guilty, he tortures himself by fasting and whipping in addition to feeling like a hypocrite when his gives sermons. Reverend Dimmesdale expresses, “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret!” (Hawthorne 107).

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Dimmesdale’s feelings were clearin that he explained that “it must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart”(93). Dimmesdale said that once the extra sin of concealing the original sin is gone the load on the conscience lessens relieving the guilt and suffering. Hester did not have these additional burdens of guilt and suffering as Dimmesdale

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Arthur Dimmesdale is a respected man. He is the puritan minister in The Scarlet Letter, and the community looks up to him. But he has a secret that no one but Hester Prynne knows. He is the father of her child, and confessing to his sin will cost him everything. In the beginning, we see Dimmesdale as a weak but religiously strong man, he is seen as cowardly through his avoidance of confessing of his sin.

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In the Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne was a character of high integrity. She lived by her own values and merits no matter what the consequence, and refused to give in to the abundance of temptations that were presented to her. The scarlet letter also provided lessons that Hester needed to learn in order to continue her development as a person. Men living by Dimmesdale’s standard, hiding the fact they have sinned and having to be pushed to the edge to confess, feel integrity takes a back seat to getting what you yearn for. For them, their moral code is only a guide, seldom

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757 Words | 4 Pages

As a penance for his wrongdoing, Dimmesdale takes to a secret closet in which he brutally scourges his body, “laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much more the pitilessly because of that bitter laugh” (136). Dimmesdale’s self-torture proves to be his only outlet for his pent-up frustration and self-loathing. As a Puritan minister, Dimmesdale’s times spent brutalizing himself are his only times of complete truthfulness in his horrid life. In addition, Roger begins carving away at Dimmesdale’s morale “like a sexton delving into a grave, perhaps in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man’s bosom” (121). The minister’s closest thing to a friend skulks in secret as an evil creature, fueled by a vengeful rage and desire to destroy him.

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762 Words | 4 Pages

The Scarlet Letter has shown the many hardships and sufferings of a plethora of its characters, if not all throughout the novel. It is without a doubt that Pearl, Hester, and Dimmesdale are the characters that endure the most adversities. From Pearl watching her mother go through agony, to Dimmesdale being haunted by his sin, and to Hester being harassed by the Puritan society. Out of these three characters, Arthur Dimmesdale is most certainly the character that bears the burden the most. The effects of sin on the mind, body, and soul of Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Hester are all visible even though there are manifested in different ways for each character.

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535 Words | 3 Pages

Hester has to deal with the public shaming of others, and is unable to fit in with most people ever again, while Dimmesdale must deal with internal conflict. At the beginning of the book, Hester is being publicly shamed for her sin of adultery. Her punishment for her sin is that she has “to wear a mark of shame”(16) on her body,

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368 Words | 2 Pages

This passage further enhances the theme of The Scarlet Letter, which is the importance of staying true to yourself, no matter what society thinks- to not hide your worst qualities so that you may live your life in the open, and so that you can be free of secrets and lies. The passage does this effectively, using a compare and contrast structure*, by contrasting Hester and Dimmesdale- Hester, who has lived her life in the open, not held back by society and its regulations, and Dimmesdale, who has kept his affair a secret, therefore remaining in the firm grip of society’s regulations. Hawthorne’s characterization of these two characters, both in this passage and throughout the book, is vital to this theme. Hester is characterized as a free person;

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1029 Words | 5 Pages

Hester changed her attire to a plain, darkshade, with no designs, which corresponded to her emotions. There was nothing she could accomplish to reduce the pain of the guilt since the truth was known by everyone in her hometown. As time went on, Hester regained some purport in her town. The townspeople demanded Hester for her skills and soon she did not need to wear the scarlet letter anymore, but she thought she deserved it. Whether the sin was committed in secrecy or not, both Hester and Dimmesdale went through similar consequences.

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841 Words | 4 Pages

Though Hester is married to Chilingworth who was much older than her, she falls in love with Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a clergyman of the Puritan community who earns great respect and fame as a priest from the community through his sermons, who later discovered to be a real father of child and most importantly a sinner who never reveals his sin. Hester is shown as courageously strong woman than the man of author’s time. Hester knew that her punishment would be increased; she never disclosed her child’s father name. Hester is also shown as a stronger character than Dimmesdale, who lacked the confident to admit his sin publicly. He lived with the guilt by torturing himself mentally and physically and we see Dimmesdale is degrading with his inner hidden sin while Hester grows strong and become influential women (Hawthorne, 1850).

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