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Theme Of Diction In The Scarlet Letter

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The Scarlet Letter expands the division between what is publicly acceptable and one’s personal thoughts and feelings. Hawthorne uses themes of sin, guilt, punishment evoke the reader’s morals and emotions. Often subsequently after sin, guilt is a familiar counterpart. Guilt by definition is the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime. Societies’ morals, affiliate sin with and aftereffect of punishment, this punishment is to teach and reinforces that the behavior is wrong and to create an example to others that misbehavior shall not be accepted. The author uses these to demonstrate his point in diction, ambiguity, and figurative language. Diction is use to enhance the reader view on the character, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, by using phrases with double meaning and daunting vocabulary. The technique of ambiguity creates apprehension in the readers by the vagueness of the author. Hawthorne moralistic diction emphasizes the personal struggle of Dimmesdale to acknowledge and accept his sin or to conceal it from his town by speaking in double meaning such as when he is speaking to the townspeople, "If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner …show more content…
Dimmesdale is tormented by his sin and guilt, which ultimately leads to his death. Hawthorne constructs Dimmesdale to be the guiltiest character in the book by slowing open the real minister.The character’s health slowly deteriorates throughout the entire book, showing how guilt slowly eats away at him and physically weakens him. Also the mental health of Dimmesdale slowly diminishes, he becomes depressed haunted by his sin, and cursed by his shame. Hawthorne conveys the true essence of the reverend by relating the minister to us in a heightening way because we also are

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