In Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the respected minister Arthur Dimmesdale deceives his community, preventing the townspeople from seeing the truth that he has sinned—hidden it. He hides his secret all these years and acts like he is still a minister of impeccable character, when he knows that he is really one of the most sinful people in the community. Although this makes him a hypocrite, Dimmesdale feels like he has to uphold his reputation so that it fits the “dismal severity of the Puritanic code of law” (Hawthorne 39). These Puritan standards are so strict that when Hester is in the market-place, everyone who sees her is judging her. One women even says, “‘She hath good skill at her needle, that’s certain . . . but did ever a woman,
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He expects them to be angry and make him leave the pulpit when they hear his veiled confession, but instead “they heard it all, and did but reverence him the more” (Hawthorne 107). Dimmesdale reminds himself of his seemingly unforgivable sin when he sees the meteor. This meteor comes when Dimmesdale is on the scaffold, when he is showing his secretive, sinful side instead of the perfect Puritan side he usually shows the community. The scaffold is the place where he punishes himself for his sin, so it is fitting that he sees the meteor when he is on the scaffold. The community’s ability to judge people for their goodness and sin is ambiguous—like the meteor—meaning that the community has “the incapacity to know anything for certain” (“Scarlet Letter” 313). He interprets this meteor’s shape as a symbol of his impurity. The community, however, interprets the meteor to mean that their deceased governor is now in heaven. He may have been impure, but kept it hidden, like Dimmesdale. These differing interpretations of the meteor support the theme that a community cannot define goodness and sin in an individual, because of the privacy and secrecy in everyone’s
He expects them to be angry and make him leave the pulpit when they hear his veiled confession, but instead “they heard it all, and did but reverence him the more” (Hawthorne 107). Dimmesdale reminds himself of his seemingly unforgivable sin when he sees the meteor. This meteor comes when Dimmesdale is on the scaffold, when he is showing his secretive, sinful side instead of the perfect Puritan side he usually shows the community. The scaffold is the place where he punishes himself for his sin, so it is fitting that he sees the meteor when he is on the scaffold. The community’s ability to judge people for their goodness and sin is ambiguous—like the meteor—meaning that the community has “the incapacity to know anything for certain” (“Scarlet Letter” 313). He interprets this meteor’s shape as a symbol of his impurity. The community, however, interprets the meteor to mean that their deceased governor is now in heaven. He may have been impure, but kept it hidden, like Dimmesdale. These differing interpretations of the meteor support the theme that a community cannot define goodness and sin in an individual, because of the privacy and secrecy in everyone’s