Scarlet Letter: Dimmesdale, An Honorable Man

The Scarlet Letter is a story authored by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 1850s during the puritan ages in Boston, Massachusetts. Key characters include Rodger Chillingworth, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Hester Prynne. In the book, Arthur Dimmesdale seems to be a reverend character that enjoys all the admirations and apotheosis from his people but is always in agony. At the end of the book, his behavior changes dramatically from a forceful man who just delivers the greatest sermon ever to a devout but weak sinner who died immediately after confessing his sin. Such a compelling contrast makes us wonder what causes him to do something that surprises everybody, including the reader. The answer is his inner struggling to making the best decision after committing the sin with Hester. He is one of the most important protagonists in the book who cares the most about his people and therefore puts all his purest faith on them, on the settlement.

Throughout the book, Dimmesdale faces three options. Firstly, he could say nothing but suffer the greatest pain by himself, which is moved by Roger Chillingworth. In the book, Chillingworth tries to make his “conscience been kept in an irritated state. The tendency of which was, not to cure by wholesome pain, but to disorganize and corrupt his spiritual being. Its result… could hardly fail to be insanity, and hereafter, that eternal alienation from the Good and True.” (Hawthorne 160) Or, he may escape from the guilt and flee to Europe, which he promises to Hester. Or he can confess in front of his people on the scaffold, being shamed in the way Hester had been through seven years ago, which he finally carries out as the way Little Pearl always wants. 

“Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself! A mockery at which angels blushed and wept, while fiends rejoiced, with jeering laughter! He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back. (122)
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The first choice that the minister has, as mentioned before, is to stay silent and endure endless pain and torture. This means that Instead of taking personal responsibility and standing with Hester and Pearl, he leaves them to suffer for adultery sin and oppressed by the townspeople. He soon realizes how pretentious his action is. In the quote, the Minister vigils back to the scaffold in the night and confesses his sin to the darkness. As he calls it a mockery, the minister finds out the hypocrisy of standing there alone and confessing to nobody, and deep in his mind, he can feel that he is doing an evil thing because “the angel wept while fiends rejoiced.”(122) The angel, representing the beauty in his heart, is later symbolized by little Pearl. The fiend is obviously symbolized by Chillingworth because Dimmesdale later calls him evil and he watches him suffering all this time. However, Chillingworth is not the only evil here. Hawthorne definitely also attempts to reveal the Puritan leaders who make use of his great eloquence skill to maintain this Puritan order and pressure him to torture himself alone in the dark and fall into the endless self-reproach. Choosing the first option, or tempt, will make Dimmesdale a puppet to the authority who maintains such a rigid society, and this, in Hawthorne’s words, is truly a “mockery of penitence.” (122)

The second choice is to flee with Hester Prynne, who is spiritual and intellectual enough to be a prophetess, “hand in hand with Ann Hutchinson, as the foundress of a religious sect.” (136) Hawthorne implies that by doing so, Dimmesdale buries the sin deep in his heart and in some way, embraces a new ideology of Hester’s that can be powerful enough to turn into a new religious sect. For most people who are self-interested, pursuing self-pleasure over anything else, this is the best choice to make. However, Dimmesdale is not an ordinary man. In some way, his eloquence is implied to be given by God, to bring faith and wisdom to the public of Boston. Even when the first time he argues, in the Governor’s Hall speaking for Hester, the magical element has revealed that his powerful language is gifted and can tremble the nature. “While the shadow of his figure, which the sunlight cast upon the floor, was tremulous with the vehemence of his appeal.” (96) “With great power comes great responsibility.” You may argue that it is not explicitly evident that he is responsible for the townspeople. While under the puritan ages when all the people are radically obsessed with religious ideologies, “the reverence of the multitude placed him already among saints and angels.”(212) He believes that his responsibility is to bring enlightenment from God to the people whose creed and life purpose depend on him. Thus, it would be even much more sinful for him to flee than commit adultery.

“According to these highly respectable witnesses, the minister, conscious that he was dying… had desired, by yielding up his breath in the arms of that fallen woman, to express to the world how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man’s own righteousness. After exhausting life in his efforts for mankind’s spiritual good, he had made the manner of his death a parable, in order to impress on his admirers the mighty and mournful lesson, that, in the view of Infinite Purity, we are sinners all alike. (212)
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The third choice is to listen to his daughter, who magically seems to know every truth in the story. She demands Dimmesdale to hold her hand and Hester’s hand and stand together at all times. Pearl is no doubt the most natural instinctive person in this society. Having this fact in mind, the last decision Dimmesdale no longer seems selfish anymore because Hawthorne here suggests that this decision is also the most natural decision Dimmesdale made. Dimmesdale here is neither a puppet of the officials nor an ignorant supporter of the Puritan rules. By doing so, He declares silently that “we are sinners all alike.” and “how utterly nugatory is the choicest of man’s own righteousness” (212) In nature, he appreciates Hester’s ideology that the society needs to change, which connects them and causes the sin. Instead of staying quiet and change nothing as Chillingworth wants, or fleeing away and causing his believers’ faith collapse, he chooses to change the society in his own way. And the result of his action proves that he is doing the right thing. First, people having different interpretations of his action will start to debate, and these dissidents can eventually change society. Second, Hester becomes a prophetess in some way, a prophetess of feminism. Third, Pearl gets the heritage and can live the way she wants forever.

In conclusion, the inner struggle of Dimmesdale is a hidden clue throughout the novel. From Chillingworth’s temptation to suffer for the rest of the life to Hester’s temptation to leave out his believers. He finally makes the right decision: standing out bravely and using his authority and eloquence to cause people to critically think their current systems. He is an honorable person and ought to be remembered.

Work Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The scarlet letter: 1850.

Acknowledgment

Thanks to Tadd Ruetenik and his critical article Another View of Arthur Dimmesdale: Scapegoating and Revelation in "The Scarlet Letter" which shares some similar ideas with me and helps me clear my mind while I am only having a vague idea.