The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1220 Words

The novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many of the main characters suffer from toils of sin. Especially Arthur Dimmesdale, the local puritan clergyman who has committed adultery and can t admit to the people of the town in Boston what he has done. He lived under a strict society where the system and all of its components were based on God. He suffers from this because he values the Puritan way. Arthur Dimmesdale does not come out for many reasons and that isn t right, which makes him a coward throughout the novel. The first of my many reasons why Arthur Dimmesdale can be characterized as a coward because he lets his mistress Hester Prynne take all the blame. â€Å"Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him;†¦show more content†¦Its makes him even more of a coward because he gives advice to others about taking full responsibility for their sin, but he doesn t even listen to himself. His spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as t hine has been, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter (page 178 paragraph 4). In this scene Roger Chillingworth tries to make Hester recognize Dimmesdale s hypocrisy but she denies it. He says that Dimmesdale can preach a good sermon about the consequences of sin, but he can t deal with them himself. It s true what Chillingworth says about Dimmesdale yet it is ironic because he is a reverend he is supposed to follow the Puritan lifestyle strictly however, he does not. He becomes more beaten as he keeps hiding the truth while he doesn t accept his punishment that he deserves. Dimmesdale’s struggle is dark and his penance is horrifying as he tries to unravel his mystery. His cowardness is taking over him and is making him conduct actions that are painful for him. â€Å"His inward trouble drove him to practices, more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome, than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale’s sec ret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more