scene toward the end of The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale find themselves conversing in the forest. Hester presses Dimmesdale to join her in returning to the Old World, thereby abandoning the Providence community. Dimmesdale, a minister and revered figure in Puritan society, refuses, and the discussion that follows exposes the critical difference between their behavior. The scene shows that while Hester does not feel guilty, Dimmesdale internalizes his own guilt; this insinuates why they experience
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Sin can alienate an individual. Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates this concept in his novel “The Scarlet Letter” by involving the three main characters Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale. The sin in which Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale have done excludes them from society, self, and God. Hester Prynne is a lady who committed the crime of adultery. She was pointed out by society with a scarlet A on her chest so when people looked at her, they seen her sin and isolated her. In “The Scarlet
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In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dimmesdale is introduced with a sympathetic tone. Hawthorne portrays Dimmesdale as a tormented man in order to get the audience to sympathize with him. By highlighting Dimmesdale’s “melancholy eyes” and overall timid nature, Hawthorne establishes the strange and internal fragility of the town’s revered minister (64). Since eyes are often a symbol of the soul, Hawthorne uses the description of Dimmesdale’s eyes in order to relate that it is,
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Title: Sub title Janet Sanchez Santa Ana College Main Title: Subtitle In Chapters IX and XV from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, its plot is developed around the characters of Hester Prynne, Pearl, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale. At the beginning of chapter IX: The Leech, takes place when Chillingworth was wondering on the outskirts of a crowd exactly on the day Hester was set up in front of the pillory. He did not want anyone to know who he was so placed his finger to
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scenes; Hester Prynne, Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, as well as Roger Chillingworth. Along with these characters being present, so is the novel's primary symbol, the scarlet letter. In The Scarlet Letter, even though the scarlet letter was the main symbol, the scaffold portrays
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the scaffold, and Dimmesdale. Hawthorne shows us that the scarlet 'A', (which Hester wears to single her out as an adulteress and sinner), is really just a token of her humanity. Because the truth is that we all have our secret sins. It is just that Hester's sin was caught, while most of the rest of us writhe beneath the guilt of secret shame. And it is this hidden guilt which eats Hester's lover, Reverend Dimmesdale, alive. Guilt and Redemption; Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale experience very
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medicine...(pg. 109.)” said Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale was referring to the fact that no medicine could help cure his “sickness.” He was not physically sick, but rather mentally sick. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, there are two distinctive types of guilt showcased throughout the book. The two types of guilt mentioned throughout the story include: external and internal guilt. Hester Prynne, the able adulteress, seems to struggle less than Dimmesdale, the cowardice adulterer. Internal
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individual: Hester Prynne. Hester Prynne is an adultress, a sinner, who lives her life in isolation with her sole daughter, Pearl. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, on the other hand, both hold respected statuses in their community -- Dimmesdale serving as a passionate minister, and Chillingworth as a talented physician. Despite Hester
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infant daughter, Pearl, and she is being displayed by the onlookers of Boston as sinful because she has committed adultery. Later, it is revealed that Hester and the young minister Arthur Dimmesdale had an affair. Although Dimmesdale did not know that he befriended Hester’s once lost husband Roger Chillingworth, Dimmesdale is also punished for his sin. Themes
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forms. It is the letter that appears on Hester's heart that she is condemned to wear for the remainder of her life. At Governor Bellingham's mansion it is magnified in the breastplate. It seems as though she is hidden behind it. On the night that Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl, a huge letter A appears in the sky. Later, while in the forest, Pearl arranges a letter a on her heart that is made of eel grass. One of the most dramatic of the A's that appear in the book is the A
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