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Who Is Dimmesdale's Mental Strength In The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne opens in a Puritan settlement, where Hester Prynne is being publicly shunned for adultery, in which she has to stand in front of a crowd for overt punishment and wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest. She holds her child, Pearl, who symbolizes her inability to hide her own past and her sins from the judgment of her settlement. The novel progresses in a way that further defines her mental strength and ability to endure this judgment. However, Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s pastor, demonstrates a differing method in which he deals with his own personal judgment and fear of alienation. As The Scarlet Letter advances, his mental strength corrupts with the help of Chillingworth’s methods of trickery and Dimmesdale’s …show more content…

This decision causes his personal culpability and establishes Dimmesdale’s inability to acknowledge his own past. As an illustration, Dimmesdale exhibits his mental fragility as he thinks “of his grave, he questioned with himself whether the grass would ever grow on it, because an accursed thing must there be buried” (Hawthorne 98). Dimmesdale cannot fathom his past and feels guilty for not confessing his sins when he could. He believes that he will die with his secret still remaining, and questions how grass would grow on it if he were buried. His personal knowledge of his past sins manages to corrupt his thoughts and his perception of himself. However, Dimmesdale’s guilt is not the only contributor to his mental state. Another factor that bestows this is Roger Chillingworth’s invidious persona and willingness to gain revenge. After comprehending Dimmesdale’s liability for Hester’s sins, Chillingworth subtly begins to torture Dimmesdale with guilt as he feels this is the only way for him to satisfy his revenge (Hawthorne 95-96). Chillingworth’s subtle methods of torment are another factor that causes Dimmesdale’s psychological strength to degrade, and allows Chillingworth to be satisfied with his desire to get revenge on Dimmesdale and Hester. Dimmesdale’s attitude towards confessing his sins and Chillingworth’s attempts to gain vengeance cause Dimmesdale’s inability to face society’s judgment and his fear of

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361 Words | 2 Pages

Dimmesdale and Chillingworth both have secrets that make them look and act differently, their secrets affect their character and how they do their job. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl but he doesn 't want to face the same humiliation as Hester did for his sins. Because of his secret he self punishes and fasts, he also preaches better than he did before although his health is failing. Chillingworth’s secret is that he was the husband of Hester while he was away, before she cheated on him. Chillingworth gets uglier and uglier driven by the need to get revenge on Pearl’s father.

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667 Words | 3 Pages

His "treatment" for Dimmesdale’s illness only makes Dimmesdale weaker, which is his ultimate revenge. Since the truth about the sin is concealed, Chillingworth is successful in torturing Dimmesdale. Another symptom of Dimmesdale’s hurt is guilt. He knows the truth, and since society does not punish him, because they do not know the truth, he feels that he needs to punish himself by whipping himself with a "bloody scourge" and fasts "until his knees trembled beneath him" (150). This unknown, physical and self-induced punishment is harsh, but since he is too self-concealed to revel his sin, Dimmesdale accepts

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741 Words | 3 Pages

Dimsdale is reluctant to admit his sin because he has the mentality that he can never lose respect from the public however in order to gain redemption for his sins he has to sacrifice his reputation. Dimsdale is one of the main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorn’s “The Scarlet Letter” he is the minister of the puritan community in Boston and everyone in the community looks up to him. Dimsdale is the puritan minister of Boston who has a high reputation who is considered to be an important member of the community. Sin is intolerable within the puritan community and that is why Dimsdale is so conflicted when it comes to confessing his sin since he is a person that everyone looks up to.

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1344 Words | 6 Pages

The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, focuses on the life of Hester Prynne—the unlucky soul who is caught committing adultery and forced to live a life of shame and ignominy. The scaffold is not only the start of her predicament, but it is also the end of the once seemingly perfect Reverend Dimmesdale’s own guilt. The scaffold is the setting of a scene three times throughout the novel: the beginning, middle, and end. For such a lifeless object, it is difficult to recognize its significance in the novel; however, the scaffold is used by Hawthorne to portray the changing relationship between the characters, specifically Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl.

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728 Words | 3 Pages

Dimmesdale and Hester met in the woods and planned to run away together after Hester told Dimmesdale about Chillingworth being the husband. After they agreed, and they left the forest, he become even darker. Wanting to create pain and havoc wherever he went. He almost felt freer of not needing to hide his sin from everyone anymore. When their plan was finally in effect the ship to take them to England was inhabited by Old Roger Chillingworth who looked terrible now.

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702 Words | 3 Pages

In the book The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrated Dimmesdale suffering and regret over the years that build him up and lead him to many obstacles and challenges that killed him in the inside. Also, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts the agony of Dimmesdale`s conscience as his guilt that is eating away at him until he confesses. In addition, Dimmesdale’s faces many obstacles and challenges that killed him and eat him from the inside. For example, of a challenge that he faces is not confessing to Hester Prynne up front to the townsfolks that he was Hester partner in the affairs. Another example is that when Hester walk up on stage and confess that she was responsible for the adultery and while she was talking, she has

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978 Words | 4 Pages

“(Hawthorne 109). His moral stage continues to be at stage 1 “Obedience and Punishment Orientation” because his selfishness still makes an overall reflection on his personality. He is more concerned about his own feelings than everyone around him opposed to his morality at the beginning of the novel. He expresses signs of jealousy because Pearl called out for him. Next, at the beginning of Chapter 18 after Hester has declared to Dimmesdale that Chillingworth is her real husband and he becomes upset, eventually he forgives her and sees Chillingworth as the real sinner.

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823 Words | 4 Pages

“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…”(Hawthorne 97). Chillingworth tried very hard to hurt Dimmesdale, which made Dimmesdale suffer very much more than he would’ve if Chillingworth left him alone. Dimmesdale’s body slowly shut down by grief and being tortured, all because of the sin he committed. Essentially, Dimmesdale ended up dying because of the sin that was

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1322 Words | 6 Pages

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in the tale of sin, revenge, and punishment, Hester Prynne involves herself in self-deception due to being caught up in a fraudulent interpretation of her sin and lives in an opaque concept of a better life. Hawthorne 's emotional and psychological drama revolves around Hester Prynne, who is convicted of adultery in colonial Boston by the civil and Puritan authorities. She is condemned to wear the scarlet letter "A" on her chest as a permanent sign of her sin. Consequently, Hester is complicated by her own interpretation of the letter and is embittered by the fact that she deems her punishment and the trials of her punishment will disappear along with the removal of the Scarlet Letter revealed by the characterization of her attitude in the novel. In the beginning, Hester attempts to prove that she does not care about what other people think, but later becomes paranoid and wants to escape from being the product of wrongdoing that the town perceives her as.

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1570 Words | 7 Pages

Nathaniel Hawthorne showed Mr. Dimmesdale as the imaginary Puritanical order in comparison to Hester. Dimmesdale struggled to persistently appear as an “excellent” Puritan, but he failed to Continue his pretense. However the Puritans held the principle of good workings, they maintained that faith was the only savior of a person. Dimmesdale, as was lacking in that belief enough for salvation, leaned towards profanation when he tried to make his good deeds direct towards rescue. He convinced himself to the fact that fine works evaluate more profoundly rather than grace and thus he will be saved with the help of his ministry : “guilty as they may be, retaining, nevertheless, a zeal for God’s glory and man’s welfare, they shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the view of men; because, thenceforward, no good can be achieved by them (105) .”

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294 Words | 2 Pages

In Chapters 7-12 Dimmesdale's character development advances the power of guilt in this section of the text. We see Dimmesdale's guilt surface at the end of chapter 10 when Chillingworth finds some sort of figure on Dimmesdale's chest. Although we don't know what this figure is, the audience can assume that this is an "A" that has been spotted. This "A" helps to elaborate the guilt that Dimmesdale is bearing both internally and externally for his role in the bearing of their child Pearl. Dimmesdale's guilt continues to surface when we see his health continue to decline because of the weight he bears for not releasing his name along with Hester's as an adulterer.

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548 Words | 3 Pages

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the protagonist, Hester Prynne, committed adultery in the eyes of the Puritan society that surrounds her. She is convicted and punished through public humiliation, and is forced to wear a scarlet letter ‘A’ on her chest, as a constant reminder of her sin. Her adulterous lover, the beloved Reverend Dimmesdale, remains unknown to the townsfolk for the duration of the novel, leaving Hester’s isolation and loneliness to intensify. Throughout the novel, each character struggles with questions of identity in terms of self and public perception. Thus, Hawthorne uses symbolism and allegory in naming and identifying the characters to provide an insight into each character's personality to the reader enhancing the story.

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777 Words | 4 Pages

Only worrying about revenge makes Chillingworth go crazy. He takes an opportunity to give medical attention to Dimmesdale, who has become ill. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth become friends, but Chillingworth tries to go into Dimmesdale’s head to get out the truth about Hester and her secret lover. After Chillingworth finds out the true identity of Hester’s lover, he acts like he does not know it is Dimmesdale. When Chillingworth finds out that Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl are going to Europe, he decides to tell the captain of the ship that he must go on the ship because they need a doctor and that he is a part of Hester’s party.

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1907 Words | 8 Pages

Ever seen someone’s guilt eat them from the inside out? If not, it is certainly evident in The Scarlet Letter, a book skillfully written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a puritan woman, Hester Prynne, the protagonist, in the 1600s, who bearsbare public punishment through two tokens of sin, her child, and the scarlet letter she must wear on her chest. The protagonist, Hester Prynne, wears a scarlet letter representing adultery to atone for her sin. Dimmesdale, the man she committed adultery with, is the town's minister who can do no wrong.

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743 Words | 3 Pages

Two of the main characters with many similarities as well as differences is Hester Prynne and Rvd. Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale are both characters in the book that had their identities set up in the beginning of the story, within the first 4 chapters. Hester and Dimmesdale are the parents of Pearl, who they had in an act of adultery and sin in the eyes of the townspeople. This book goes through the story of Hester and Dimmesdale's punishments, as well as repentance.

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