Human Nature In The Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne establishes several essential facets of human nature. In the beginning, Hawthorne introduces death and crime as inevitable in the human condition. Yet throughout the novel, Hawthorne also highlights another part of human nature as a common theme: concealment. This theme is reflected by characters such as Hester and Chillingworth, but particularly by Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale, the admired minister of the Puritan community, spends years hiding that he committed adultery with Hester, and does so to protect the Puritans. However, the minister hurts himself in the process, as he feels unworthy due to his inauthenticity. Hawthorne also depicts the Puritan people as rigid, and unable to accept the world as it
Continually, Dimmesdale attempts to confess his sin to relieve himself from his suffering. He refers to himself as a “pollution and a lie”, hinting at his sin, yet the Puritan people still describe him as “the saint on earth” (Hawthorne 140). Hawthorne highlights the two opposing views to emphasize that Puritans manipulate their own perspectives. Not only does Dimmesdale try to confess to his sin, he also stresses his fault, as pollution implies that he has harmful effects, and hurts his environment, which the Puritan people are a part of. Thus, he describes himself as a negative effect on the Puritans, because he has sinned. Yet, the Puritans still view him as sacred exactly for that reason: they believe he is simply being modest. They refuse to believe that their minister could be stained by sin, and thus, do not see him as
He also stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl, and shows the A he has branded on his chest. However, certain Puritans refuse to admit there was ano an A on his chest, and believe he was portraying that everyone is a sinner. Hawthorne refers to this belief as an example of “stubborn fidelity” (Hawthorne 254). The word stubborn has a negative connotation, and expresses that the Puritan view is nothing but an illusion they cannot stop believing in. Thus, he establishes their inability to see the world as it is, which makes Dimmesdale’s concealment pointless, as even after his confession, Puritans still see him as an upright man. During 7 years, Dimmesdale hurt himself to hide his sin from the Puritan people, yet it was not needed as they would have refused to see it either way. Dimmesdale tried to protect the Puritans, but in reality, just made himself suffer without reason as they manipulate their