Arthur Dimmesdale In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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On the other hand, although it is obvious that Chillingworth is intentionally torturing Dimmesdale, one thing is for sure that Dimmesdale’s conscious is not ready to openly show itself; therefore, he would rather poison himself than to bear any responsibility. Because he is a minister, this occasion would deeply hurt Dimmesdale’s reputation. Even though, when Hester does not share her lovers name up on the scaffold “the secrecy of Dimmesdale’s sin is exactly what causes him to [despise] his [piteous] self” (Hawthorne 96). Due to his secrecy of his sin, he cannot reach his salvation, in spite of Hester. Regardless of the supremacy, Dimmesdale knows that a sin is a sin. For this reason, so long as he hides what he did, and postpone a confrontation …show more content…
As explained before avoiding sin or any tendency of committing a sin was of great importance for Puritans. Yet, their knowledge of religion would stumble at some place, and when that happened it was the ministers who would help them. Yet again, one may think that the ministers are bereft of a decent education. In modern sense, this might be true, however, concerning the peak of puritanism Brockway argues that “the education of Puritan ministers stressed the mastery of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew so that, ideally, the minister could read the Scriptures in the original tongues rather than in translation. Clerical education also included rigorous courses in logic to aid in the [interpretation] of the text” (193). This means that the ministers, in that time, were highly esteemed. Their words were considered to be their bonds. So Dimmesdale was both the interpreter of the word of God, that is the Bible, and an educated citizen. A man of his shoes was to be displaying the morality of Puritans. Hereupon, his guilt, his sin, and his esteem had an unbearable pressure on him. Admitting his sin might have been punished by death. Consequently, the confrontation from which he had been escaping was
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