Letter Essay, Research Paper

The Presence of Guilt in The Scarlet Letter

Guilt can alter even the evilest moral criterions. The go oning emotional guilt throughout the narrative affects the characters and events that take topographic point. This presence of guilt is shown through the scaffold with Hester? s penalty, with Dimmesdale? s inner battle, and with Dimmesdale? s concluding confession at the terminal of the novel.

Guilt foremost comes into drama, when Hester must take her base on the scaffold as public penalty for her criminal conversation. Hester is forced to acknowledge her wickedness and base on the scaffold to demo that she is paying for her wickedness. As she stands there among the public oculus with Pearl in her weaponries, Hester begins to recognize what she has done is incorrect. She touches the vermilion missive to? guarantee herself that the baby and her shame are real. ? ( 52 ) She is forced to set into position that she has lost everything, but Hester still refuses to be genuinely penitent of her actions. She knows she loves Dimmesdale and although everything between them has changed, she is certain their love will ne’er melt.

Dimmesdale is besides affected by his ain guilt. Dimmesdale is overcome by the anguish he feels emotionally and spiritually for his wickedness. He approaches the same scaffold that Hester took her penalty on earlier, to acknowledge his guilt. He goes at dark because he is excessively cowardly to acknowledge his wickedness publically. He feels that possibly in some manner, he can experience better about himself if he can stand on the scaffold as Hester did. As he stands at that place, Dimmesdale feels? as if the existence were staring at the vermilion item on his bare chest? ( 133 ) This is image dramas true as the cicatrix that Dimmesdale has inflict

ed upon himself, is revealed. Since

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Dimmesdale is excessively afraid to hold the townspeople persecute him, he begins to mangle himself physically to alleviate some of the torment he feels. In some manner, he feels guilty that Hester must take all the incrimination for their criminal conversation, and his individuality remains concealed. He knows that he is slightly protected from persecution and he feels that self-mutilation is the lone manner to get the better of his guilty scruples.

Finally, Dimmesdale? s guilt overpowers him. Guilt leads to the concluding declaration in the novel. The decision takes topographic point on the scaffold. As Dimmesdale? s guilt physiques and physiques, he gets sicker and sicker. It is so that he realizes his lone true penitence is through public confession. Following what was greatest discourse of his all right calling, Dimmesdale asks Hester and Pearl to go up the scaffold stairss with him. With the adult female he loves and his kid through wickedness by his side, he turns to the crowd of people and with the words, ? ? at last! ? I stand upon the topographic point where seven old ages since, I should hold stood? ? ( 232 ) he confesses the wickedness that has plagued him for old ages, let go ofing his guilty scruples. Once his guilt is freed, Dimmesdale feels no compunction, closes his eyes, and takes his last breath.

Guilt plays a really dramatic function throughout The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne uses the alone symbol of the scaffold, to move as the cardinal location for the acknowledgment of wickedness and guilt. The wickedness of criminal conversation and the guilt that follows affects Hester and Dimmesdale both internally and externally in different ways. But in n the terminal, Hawthorne shows that a guilt is the penalty for all wickedness, but can besides be the key to the visible radiation.