A Theme of Sin in "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne

In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne masterfully puts many different types of themes including: sin, adultery, revenge, guilt, and blame. He uses character development to format the plot of this novel with rising actions and a turning climax. There are four main characters that make this novel what it is: Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingsworth, and Hester’s daughter Pearl. All of the characters in the book are somehow affected by the theme of sin; the biggest adultery a person can commit is sin and it molds their entire lives and the way they decide to cope with it.

As a start, Hester, knowing she committed the sin of adultery, Hester’s choice to embrace her action allows her to grow, presenting the Scarlet Letter. Not like Dimmesdale, Hester has no choice but to move forward with her child Pearl. While this may seem like an awful punishment at first, it actually ends up working out for her in the end. Initially, the people are mean to Hester, who feels guilt and shame from their looks. One person eventually tried to put an end to them, exclaiming, “not a stitch in that embroidered letter, but she has felt it in her heart” (Hawthorne). Additionally, Hester’s appearance begins to reflect her feelings; she wears more types of clothing. Hester tried to go on with her life, setting up in the town and becoming a seamstress as well as raising Pearl by herself without a father figure present. The villagers begin to appreciate the hard work that Hester has done for them. Hester is filled with emotions knowing full well that “she would become the general symbolat which the preacher and moralist might point… the figure, the body, the reality of sin” A she begins to distract herself with her work and realize the blessing of her child Pearl, and that the “A” carved in her chest begins to mean something more powerful. She even tried to fix the letter on her chest and make it better. Hester’s secret sin was revealed to everyone in town, which kept it from being able to ruin her life even more. Rather than her trying to avoid the past, she attempts to complete tasks in an effort to seek forgiveness from everyone including from her own child.

In contrast, Arthur Dimmesdale refuses to reveal the act of adultery, instead of telling the town what he had done but he didn’t want that blame. He is completely different compared to Hester; a reverend, and keeping his sin a secret from everyone. The deed already seems to be troubling him from the start of the book, as he is described as having, “an air about him – an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look – as of a being who found himself at a loss in the pathway of human existence” (Hawthorne). Despite the world, Dimmesdale attempts to keep the secret hidden until it starts to show that something is wrong with him. As time passes, Dimmesdale’s health begins to tremble downhill; he is described as “emancipated: his voice had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it; he was often observed to put his hand over his heart, with a first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain”. Of course, most people in the town see something in the devotion to his religious studies, unaware of the evil that started all of it. His condition doesn’t get better, especially with Chillingsworth in the middle of it. Dimmesdale’s health conditions begin to spike, but in a positive way; this of course occuring after he accepts the sin he committed and makes plans to flee town with Hester and Pearl. As word gets around the town, Dimmesdale starts to feel energetic and impulsive with his actions and wanting to say to everyone as they pass by him, “I am not the man for whom you take me! I left him yonder in the forest. Go, seek your minister, and see if his emancipated figure is not flung down there, like a cast-off garment!” (Hawthorne). The horrible weight that Dimmesdale carried upon himself for so many years is not an easy burden to carry upon you for so long. Dimmesdale reveals that suddenly he is becoming a weaker f than before and he soon later dies. In his final moments, as a reader we are left with the burden he carried for so long wondering what Hester will do now. However, the novel lets the audience know that spending our lives locked away from our secrets and sin is just the way that Dimmesdale did and now he is gone.

Throughout the course of history, those who have commited a sin were often outcast from the public or family After a public humiliation, Hester is considered a sinner due to her birth of the “devil child” (Hawthorne). She is convicted to the lifelong bearing of something on her chest. It symbolizes the change in perception of sin. She perceives changes from one shame to another with the idea that everyone is a sinner no matter who you are. In the beginning of the Scarlet Letter, Hester is standing on a scaffold, before puritan leaders, being tried for adultery, “Behold, verily, there is the woman in the Scarlet Letter…”. It reflected her future as a person. People would look at her with disgust thinking that a young woman like her could commit such a thing.

Keeping a secret is a hard task, and that may affect an individual in numerous ways. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale are placed in a position where they have committed a sin and everyone in the town knows about it. What if everyone accepted their sin and Pearl was able to live her life all those years with a father figure? Hester may have had a better life rather than living her adult years with the “A” and getting seen as an awful individual.    

Works Cited

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