Hawthorne's View Of Sin And Confession In The Scarlet Letter

Hawthorne’s view of Sin and Confession
Some Christians believe that in order to have true confession, it needs to be intimate and solely between God and the sinner, while others believe that for confession to be real, it must be in public. Many believe that, for true confession, Christians must confess to other Christians and confide in them. In the seventeenth century, the Puritan beliefs dominated many of the colonies. Puritans’ believed that sin was rather taboo, and it was something to be concealed. However, in the Scarlet letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne goes against that by taking the stance that humans are only truly free from the guilt of their sin after they go through sincere outward confession. He shows this through Dimmesdale and Hester and their battle with sin. …show more content…
On page 222, Hester Prynne, as Dimmesdale is dying, leans down and says, “[we] shall spend our immortal lives together,” (Hawthorne 222), but Dimmesdale does not give her the response she was expecting. He tells her that when they had the affair, “it was thenceforth vain to hope that [they] could meet [there]after, in an everlasting and pure reunion.” However, as Dimmesdale says next, God is merciful, and he will forgive the deepest of sins, but the sinner has to have true confession. By taking this position, Hawthorne is essentially making a jab at the puritans. Dimmesdale was only truly free when he got his sin out and was able to talk about it. Even when Hester comes back in the end of the book, she is not free of the guilt of her sin, because if she were free of it, she would have willingly taken the “A” off of her chest. The Puritans were very concerned with keeping sin hidden and Hawthorne is going completely against that through the examples of Dimmesdale and Hester in this