In reading ‘The Scarlet Letter’ Hawthorne’s novel can be found to be psychologically cohesive based on its characters. Though many characters in Hawthorne’s story exemplify this, no one other than Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth, and the young Pearl express this trait more. Throughout the story, the sin of adultery with Hester Prynne plagues Arthur Dimmesdale, but this plague is not of his body. No, it is of his mind and soul, hence the psychology. Likewise, Chillingworth also expresses a psychological change that also greatly affects his own physical form. Pearl also demonstrates child psychology based upon her many actions as she grows throughout the story.
In the ‘Scarlet Letter’ it starts with Hester emerging …show more content…
Furthermore In chapter 9, on page 91, it says “the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail.” Though one may not consider this to have any connection to psychology, the truth is quite the opposite. In the story, Arthur suffers from the guilt of his sinful crime. Guilt, according to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, is classified into five basic types and Arthur suffers from the first listed called, obviously enough, Guilt Cause 1: feeling guilty for something he did. As the writing stretches on, Arthur begins to exhibit insanity such as “On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of …show more content…
He enters the story when Hester mounts the scaffold, both of them acknowledging each other before he holds a finger to his lips as a way of keeping her silent. It is during his confrontation with Hester in the prison that the reader can observe his psychology, or simply his state of mind. Based on the example “Drink Then’, replied he, still with the same cold composure”, Chillingworth can be diagnosed with slight psychopathy. Psychopathy, as described by doctor Paula MacKenzie, is a personality disorder in which a person may seem normal to the naked eye, but is either almost or is completely void of emotional feeling(The Psychopath). This takes a physical manifestation in Chillingworth later in the story when Hester confronts him in. On page 134, he is even described as “a deformed old figure, with a face that haunted mens memories longer than than they liked”. This too shows how “The Scarlet Letter” is filled with comparisons to
In the ‘Scarlet Letter’ it starts with Hester emerging …show more content…
Furthermore In chapter 9, on page 91, it says “the health of Mr. Dimmesdale had evidently begun to fail.” Though one may not consider this to have any connection to psychology, the truth is quite the opposite. In the story, Arthur suffers from the guilt of his sinful crime. Guilt, according to Susan Krauss Whitbourne, is classified into five basic types and Arthur suffers from the first listed called, obviously enough, Guilt Cause 1: feeling guilty for something he did. As the writing stretches on, Arthur begins to exhibit insanity such as “On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of …show more content…
He enters the story when Hester mounts the scaffold, both of them acknowledging each other before he holds a finger to his lips as a way of keeping her silent. It is during his confrontation with Hester in the prison that the reader can observe his psychology, or simply his state of mind. Based on the example “Drink Then’, replied he, still with the same cold composure”, Chillingworth can be diagnosed with slight psychopathy. Psychopathy, as described by doctor Paula MacKenzie, is a personality disorder in which a person may seem normal to the naked eye, but is either almost or is completely void of emotional feeling(The Psychopath). This takes a physical manifestation in Chillingworth later in the story when Hester confronts him in. On page 134, he is even described as “a deformed old figure, with a face that haunted mens memories longer than than they liked”. This too shows how “The Scarlet Letter” is filled with comparisons to