Dimmesdale's true character in Scarlet Letter Essay

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Austin Topak
Mr. Sand
English III-H
21 October 2010
Dimmesdale’s True Character There are many factors that add up to create someone’s personality. One can figure out what kind of person somebody else is by what they say they are going to do, and what they will actually do. In the book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is quite simple as to how to figure out what kind of person Dimmesdale is. From the book, it is known that Dimmesdale had an affair with Hester Prynne who was married to Roger Chillingworth. Hester had a baby from the affair and she refused to tell anyone who the father was and Dimmesdale refused to admit to the community that he was the father. Based on what is known from the novel, one can conclude that Dimmesdale is an abominable person. Dimmesdale is an abominable person because he is a deserter. He deserted Hester and Pearl by refusing to stand with them on the scaffold and to own up to the truth of being Pearl’s father. It is made very clear when Pearl asks him, “wilt thou stand here with mother and me, tomorrow noontide?” Dimmesdale answers, “Nay; not so my little Pearl” (104-105). He is very bluntly denying his family and is rejecting their offer to finally live without the pressure of everyone asking for the truth. By rejecting Pearls request he is deserting the chance to finally become a family. Dimmesdale is a deserter because he does not want to own up to the truth and take the wrath of it from other people in the community. Dimmesdale does not want to have people think differently of him or be frowned upon. Dimmesdale is deserting the chance to make things right and possibly make all of their lives happier. He is deserting the opportunity to stand up for what he believes should be and what he wants to happen. Another reason as to why Dimmesdale is an abominable person is because he is a home wrecker. He not only ruined the marriage of Hester and Roger Chillingworth, but their relationship as friends as well. Roger did not want to be on good terms with Hester because she refused to tell him the truth and only wanted revenge. Because of the affair between Dimmesdale and Hester, Roger did not want to let people know that he and Hester were ever married as he plainly states, “Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep likewise mine! There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband” (28)! If people had found out that he and Hester were married it would have been embarrassing on his part knowing that Hester was not happy with their marriage and she did not love Roger enough to wait for him. Dimmesdale is a home wrecker because he destroyed the possibility of Pearl ever having a normal childhood. Neither Pearl nor Hester had the opportunity to live a normal life. Pearl never got the chance to live in a happy family with both a mother and a father, and Hester never got the chance to experience having the loving husband who took care of the family. The personality trait of being a hypocrite also makes Dimmesdale an abominable person. Dimmesdale is always preaching of how a puritan should act and the good puritan ways, but he goes against what he preaches and it makes him out to be a hypocrite. He makes himself out to be a hypocrite when he tells Hester in front of the entire congregation, “I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him” (20). Dimmesdale is telling Hester to do something that he deep down does not want her to do at all. He is trying to get everyone in the community to believe that he is not the man they are searching for. He is lying to everyone and trying to put the blame onto another man. Dimmesdale knows that he committed adultery and yet is publicly humiliating another adulterer. Although procrastination is not always a terrible thing, it was the wrong choice for Dimmesdale,
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