What was dimmesdales view of confession of sin

That only of a true man confessing of sin, stands upon a scaffolding with no one but himself, and knows death will be his true redemption.

The guilt he was feeling was the fuel for his survival, and once he revealed this sin he knew that it was the end for him. He knew that the only way for forgiveness from God was to die, and fly truthfully to heaven. As he stood on the scaffolding the day of confession he struggled to make it up the stairs.

Hester accompanied him with little Pearl by their sides, as he would make his way to the podium. It was his biggest fear, but also the showing of a true man. Hester is resembling his guilt, she is holding him up, she is the living proof of his sin that is keeping him alive.

She, as the sin, is stopping him from going peacefully, because he must go in truth and honesty because he is a well nurtured man. Dimmesdale confesses his sin in the only way that he knows to be true, in front of all the people he was dishonest to and through the influence of God. She tries to question him about what feelings that might still remain, but he is sure the future of their love will never exist.

Dimmesdale knows that the punishment for his sin should not reward him with this love. The manhood he embodied was that of a innocent soul, and confessing his sin for God proved him to be an honest man. Arthur Dimmesdale hid his sin for seven long years, but after such a long time, he was able to come clean.

Hester confessed her sin because she had no choice she already had incriminating evidence in the form of a child and had to confess or be expelled from the community.

In this sense, Hester had no choice but to confess or leave the community and she chose to confess. Although, we may not know why she made this choice, but we know she made it and she decided to stay with it and not leave the community in order to possibly confess her sins.

Arthur Dimmesdale did not confess his sins for all the wrong reasons. Arthur had to deal with all the pressures of a life of sin but also the pressure of his own conscience to confess those sins. The pressures on his body were worse than that of Hester who had confessed her sins. One of the main reasons that Arthur was in poor physical condition was that the wise Doctor Chillingworth had poisoned him, and kept poisoning him until he had confessed of his sins at the end of the book.

This and the fact that his grief and guilt had led him to totally decimate his body both spiritually and physically he had just driven himself too far. Farther than any person should take this kind of self-mutilation. His social life also suffered as a result of this physical and mental torture because he had turned into a walking zombie and had not been very responsive to anything but his terrible torment. In this way, he was degrading himself and thought it necessary to do so for repentance.

Although, he had not voiced his sin publicly he had preached about himself not being pure and being a sinner. In spite of this, the unknowing congregation worshiped him all the more for his self-proclamation of sinfulness without telling what his sin was.

Get Access. Satisfactory Essays. Read More. They comment on Pearl's strange behavior and then return to their discussion. Watching Hester and Pearl depart, Dimmesdale agrees with Chillingworth that Hester is better off with her sin publicly displayed than she would be with it concealed. When Chillingworth renews his probing of Dimmesdale's conscience, suggesting that he can never cure Dimmesdale as long as the minister conceals anything, the minister says that his sickness is a "sickness of the soul" and passionately cries out that he will not reveal his secret to "an earthly physician.

One day, not long afterward, Chillingworth finds Dimmesdale asleep in a chair. Pulling aside the minister's vestment, he stares at the clergyman's chest. What he sees there causes "a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror," and he does a spontaneous dance of ecstasy. This chapter allows the reader to witness Chillingworth's evil determination to accomplish his revenge on and to increase the painful inner suffering of young Arthur Dimmesdale.

The reader is also given the best insight yet into the nature of Dimmesdale's tortured battle with himself. Clearly, the struggle within his soul is destroying him, as evidenced by his physical appearance and his mental anguish, yet he still cannot confess his role in the adulterous affair with Hester. It should be noted that Dimmesdale articulates his justification for his silence, but, in the face of Chillingworth's diabolical logic and questioning intended to manipulate the minister into a confession of his sin, Dimmesdale breaks off the colloquy.

Hawthorne refers in this chapter to Chillingworth's earlier reputation as once a "pure and upright man. Correspondingly, the conservatives believe, society need only renew its vigilance against evil rather than reconsider its very conception of evil. Even in his defiance, then, Dimmesdale is appropriated by the Puritan system as a means of reinforcing its pre established messages. However, this victory for the entrenched ways seems to be only temporary.

The final acknowledgment of that sin has freed her. Pearl returns to Europe and marries into an aristocratic family. Notably, she does not go to England, which is the society against which the Puritans define themselves. Pearl opts out of this binary altogether, finding a home in a place where the social structure is well established and need not rely on a dogmatic adherence to rules in order to protect its existence. Unlike Pearl, Hester can never escape her role as an emblem of something larger.

Having sacrificed her humanity and her individuality to her child, and to the letter on her chest, Hester now becomes a spokeswoman for larger issues. She becomes an advocate for women and takes on a role in the community similar to that of a minister: she cares for and attends to the spiritual needs of her fellow human beings. Although she and Dimmesdale are together at last, the distance between their graves and the design of their shared headstone seem to call out for interpretive readings.

The simple romantic relationship between them is overshadowed by its larger representations.