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Arthur Dimmesdale Quotes
The quote from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter, “No man, for any considerable length of time, can wear one face to the multitude and another to himself without finally becoming confused as to which is true” (p.170) can be seen throughout the whole novel.
The first example is Arthur Dimmesdale. He has to keep the secret that he is Pearl’s father. To the whole town, Dimmesdale is known as being a great minister, but in this mind he was really a sinner. By having this battle going on in his head Dimmesdale became weak. Hawthorne explains this by saying "his spirit lacked the strength that could have borne up, as thine has been, beneath a burden like thy scarlet letter" (p.124). Because Dimmesdale was so confused by the two different
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