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   kc4u Teacher
   College - Senior

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   Arthur Dimmesdale is the venerated minister in the Boston village where the action of Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter takes place. He belongs to the Puritan community and has a clean image in the place as a dutiful, eloquent and morally upright person. Ironically enough, he is the person who has committed adultery with Hester, and Pearl is their child. This is a secret, the burden of which, along with that of Hester's sacrificial silence is something that he has to carry on his shoulders all the while.

   Dimmesdale is shown rather mysteriously in the novel. He is a guilt-ridden man, who lives under the pain of duplicity and sin. The garb that he has to put on plagues him and he is "dimmed" by his sin. I do not think Hawthorne wants to present him as an evil character. The timid and understated portrayal of his character implies a tacit authorial sympathy. It only shows his lamentation; the inner vulnerability of human beings to temptations of sin. There is an element of masochism in him. He wants to punish himself for what he has done. Does he have a pact with the witch or any such evil force of the forest? Does he have anything written on his chest? Is it another "A"? These are all unanswered questions. What does the scaffold-audience see when he bares his chest in the climax? His final speech, depicting the sinful human condition is replete with irony, as it seems to be a narration of his own story, at a very private level. It is also his confessional speech, in a way.

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   Posted by kc4u on Saturday November 7, 2009 at 7:49 AM