Is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale's Hypocrisy In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Have you ever known a minister who has done a great sin? Or a self-centered minister who is drowning in his guilt from a sin? Neither have I. Most ministers one can think of is a God-like figure who no one would think would sin like themselves because of the ministers’ devotion to their faith and God. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Puritan community thought their beloved minister could never sin, but in fact Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is a devoted minister who has done the sin of adultery with his secret lover Hester whose sin is publicly shamed from their daughter Pearl. However, Hester’s sin is publicly shown but, Dimmesdale keeps this sin a secret from the public fearing he will lose everything if he does not. Even though …show more content…
His influential speech to the public about Hester being publicly shamed for her sin on the scaffold instead of hiding with a guilty heart and for the man with the guilty heart in silence to come out of his temptation shows Dimmesdale’s hypocrisy. Dimmesdale is a powerful preacher who is preaching about a man who needs to reveal his sin, and everyone needs to be honest, but him not applying these words of influence to himself makes himself hypocritical. Since the reader and none of the town know Dimmesdale’s act of sin or whose Pearl’s father is, Dimmesdale is the main character in the way of no one, not even he, knows the identity of his soul making him mysterious and important to the plot of the book. If Dimmesdale’s sin was revealed earlier, the plot of the book would completely change which greatly shows his importance. The whole book Dimmesdale is eating himself alive about this burden he has to carry every day and the lack of identity he has. Dimmesdale wishes he could just tell the public his sin and figure out his identity, but he can not because of everything he would lose, including his job as a minister. Dimmesdale reveals the