essay 1

The Bible in The Scarlet Letter Hester Prynne, from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, was alienated from her society for committing adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale. The bible says the man who commits adultery will suffer, and he will be in despair. Job 15:20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 says “All his days the wicked man suffers torment, ... Terrifying sounds fill his ear; ...He despairs of escaping the darkness;...Distress and anguish fill him with terror; they overwhelm him, ...because he shakes his fist at God...” Reverend Dimmesdale struggled with God throughout the whole novel, and God causes him suffering and pain. Unlike Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale suffered all of his anguish and torment within himself. No one knew that the Reverend was the father to Hester’s child. The bible also says in Proverbs 28:13 that “He who conceals his sin does not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.” Dimmesdale was selfish and wanted to keep his job and his good reputation with the people of Boston. Therefore, Hester took all the blame and punishment. The Reverend should have done what Hester did and take the punishment. The narrator says, “But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness. . . . The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.” She was taught by her wrong actions, but Dimmesdale was not. Reverend Dimmesdale only hurt himself by not owning up to his actions. The narrator says, “Why, then, had he come hither? Was it but the mockery of penitence? A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself […] He