The Scarlet Letter Interpretive Essay In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the Reverend Dimmesdale is the central battle of the story. He’s torn between his want to simply accept and pronounce his sin and Pearl as his daughter and his love of freedom. His demeanor drastically modifications from the primary scaffold scene, the place he’s seen as a two-faced criticizer to the third and ultimate scaffold scene, the place he humbly repents and acknowledges his sin publicly.
The three scaffold scenes within the e book are essential, as they painting Dimmesdale’s gradual development from whole hypocrite in direction of full atonement for his sin.
Within the first scaffold scene, Hester Prynne is seen on the scaffold, holding Pearl in her arms, unwaveringly acknowledging her sin. The Reverend Dimmesdale is there as nicely, taking up the position of her accuser and demanding that she reveal the particular person with whom she dedicated the adulterous act. Hester Prynne completely refuses to call the daddy of her baby and declares.
I can’t converse, and my baby should search a heavenly Father, she shall by no means know an earthly one! ” (Web page 60) This scene reveals Reverend Dimmesdale as a sheer hypocrite and, whereas he persists in having Hester identify her lover, he secretly prays that she maintains her silence with a purpose to maintain his fame immaculate. On the second scaffold scene, Dimmesdale, who remains to be sustaining his place as Hester Prynne’s accuser and a hypocrite, is struggling with the wrestle of his good fame battling his actual self.
In the course of the midnight, whereas the townspeople are all asleep, Dimmesdale makes his strategy to the scaffold, holding a silent vigil. He cries out in bodily and psychological ache. Hester and Pearl hear his crying as they’re on their method dwelling and go to him. There, at Dimmesdale’s request, that they be a part of him on the scaffold the place they stand within the darkness, holding one another. Pearl then asks Dimmesdale if he would stand with them at noontide the following day and he refuses, saying that as a substitute, they are going to stand collectively on the good Judgement Day.
In the course of the third and ultimate scaffold scene, Dimmesdale is lastly seen as humbly repentant for his and Hester’s sin. Instantly after his Election Day sermon, which makes him much more standard among the many townspeople, Dimmesdale, leads the procession of individuals in direction of the city corridor for a banquet. As he nears the scaffold, he requires Hester and Pearl to Help him up the steps and asks them as soon as once more to face beside him. At this second, Dimmesdale confesses to the entire city, announcing his guilt however but, on the identical time, was in a position to salvage his soul.
Dimmesdale is lastly in a position to free himself of all anguish and die with an open conscience. That is the one second of pleasure for Dimmesdale all through the whole e book. He then dies, realizing that he will probably be warmly welcomed into God’s Heavenly Kingdom. By the three scaffold scenes, Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals the rising psychological and bodily ache the Reverend Dimmesdale skilled by making an attempt to cover his sin from the townspeople and God Himself.
Within the first scaffold scene, he’s Hester’s two-faced accuser; within the second scaffold scene, he shows insufferable bodily and psychological ache. Lastly, within the third scaffold scene, he’s publicly and humbly repentant for his sin, liberating not solely himself, but in addition Hester and Pearl. Though one might say that he dies in disgrace within the eyes of the townspeople, due to his willful public confession, he’s truly given a gracious acceptance into Heaven, the place he’ll reside with everlasting happiness and fully freed from any torment or anguish.