Secrets In Scarlet Letter Essay Research Paper

Secrets In Scarlet Letter Essay, Research Paper

Scarlet Letter-Secret Theme

One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered around Hester Prynne s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or feeling kept within slowly engulfs and destroys the soul, while a secret made public can allow a soul to recover and even strengthen.

When a secret is hidden inside it can engulf and even destroy a person. Arthur Dimmesdale, a revered young minister in the town, demonstrates what happens to the soul. Dimmesdale, as it is later made known, commits the serious crime of adultery with a young married woman named Hester Prynne living in the Plymouth Colony. Because of Hester s unwillingness to reveal her partner in sin, and Dimmesdale s fear of persecution and most of all humiliation, the minister is forced to keep his sin a secret. So he watches as Hester is placed before her peers on a platform in front of the whole town and is then called to speak to her and urge that she reveal her fellow adulterer. In essence, he is called upon to commit yet another sin, that of hypocrisy. Dimmesdale s accumulated sins build inside of him, constantly afflicting his soul until it begins to affect him negatively. Thinking himself a hypocrite, he tries to ease his conscience and requite his sin by scourging himself on the chest during the night, fasting for days on end and even climbing the same platform on which Hester began her humiliation.

Walking in the shadow of a dream, as it were, and perhaps actually under the influence of a species of somnambulism (sleepwalk), Mr. Dimmesdale reached the spot where, now so long since, Hester Prynne had lived through her first hours of public ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven long years, and footworn, too, with the tread of many culprits who had since ascended it, remained standing beneath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister went up the steps.

Dimmesdale s increasingly enervated physical condition is evident through his eyes, which show a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depths, As years go by, the minister is inundated with guilt, to the point that he is physically deteriorating. All the while giving phenomenal sermons and regarded as a pillar of the community, internally, Dimmesdale could not feel worse. Dimmesdale s pain was obviously related to, and most likely the result of, his concealed sins. It is not only sins you commit kept secret that cause anguish to the soul, but also secrets in general that can saturate the human soul until they begin to take over human life.

In addition, a sin or secret that goes unacknowledged and unrevealed can cause a cycle of vengeance and further sin. Such an example of feelings kept secret ruining a life is the secret of Roger Chillingsworth. He is the husband of Hester Prynne and is thought by the townsfolk to be dead at sea. He returns in hopes of surprising his wife and living a happy life together only to find his wife being punished for adultery. Upon visiting with his wife in prison, in disguise as a doctor, Chillingsworth makes it clear that he does not want his identity known. His primary reason for this request of his wife is in order to salvage all the dignity he can. When Hester refuses to tell him who fathered her baby, Pearl, he vows to seek vengeance on his wife s lover. Chillingsworth also requests that this be kept secret from the public, so that he has a chance to sense the guilty one for himself. Chillingsworth, too, experiences a drastic descending change in his physical condition. He makes vengeance an obsession, an obsession that eventually transcends his life. Chillingsworth suspects Dimmesdale s guilt, so he attempts to get closer to him by becoming the reverend s personal physician. When Chillingsworth uncovers Dimmesdale s shirt while he is sleeping, he finds an A scourged on his chest, similar to the one worn on Hester s bosom in penance for her crime of adultery. Hawthorne portrays him closely to Satan as he stares at the wound in great joy.

Had a man seen old Roger Chillingsworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won to his kingdom

This vividly shows how much his obsession has taken over his life. As the obsession slowly grew, his physical and mental condition and his life overall began to diminish. The only one who could see this drastic change was Hester who knew well what he was once like.

Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what a change had come over his features,–how much uglier they were,–how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen,–since the days when she had familiarly known him.

His secret hatred towards Dimmesdale and his obsession with vengeance takes over his life and changes his physical and mental condition for the worse because he keeps it inside and never lets any anger out leaving it to build up beyond the point of manageability.

Unlike Dimmesdale and Chillingsworth, the