Themes of the Scarlet Letter
...and also caused him to live a life of guilt and regret. It is easily seen in all of the cases that sin negatively affected the person. Also this theme is portrayed when Dimmesdale is finally set free of sin’s grasp when he confessed on the scaffold. The devil embodied by Chillingworth died and withered away when Dimmesdale confessed his sin before God. Chillingworth even said,“… there is no one place so secret- no high place nor lowly place where thou couldst have escaped me-save on this very scaffold!”(p 210) This means the only way Dimmesdale could have escaped the grip of sin was to confess before God. The strict Puritan life-style the characters in The Scarlet Letter were forced to live by their society resulted in hypocritical and secretive behavior. This theme of Hawthorne’s was shown when people put up a front (holiness in the case of Dimmesdale) that blocked what was really going on within the person. People who went against the rules of the Puritan society generally kept their offense a secret and only displayed their emotions behind closed doors or away from the public eye. For example, Dimmesdale confessed his sin of adultery on the scaffold in the dark away from the public eye and it was not until later that he did it in front of everyone. Also, Dimmesdale began to mutilate his body by cutting himself in secrecy. The forest was another place where people could freely express their secrets and not be condemned by society. This was shown when Hester and Pearl met Dimmesdale in the forest and could talk openly together without worrying about what their society would think or do to them. Most of the town was guilty of hypocrisy and this was shown when Hester passed people who judged her sin of adultery even though she knew that they had also committed sins of equal severity. Dimmesdale’s hypocrisy was revealed when he was on the scaffold and condemned Hester for a crime he committed with her. He allowed her to face the punishment and let her life be destroyed while he escaped the same pain and embarrassment. Another theme presented by Hawthorne is the conflict between the rebel (Hester) and society’s pressure to conform. From the beginning of the novel Hester is portrayed as a rebel refusing to conform to her society. Her decoration of the scarlet letter, enhancing its visibility, embodied her rebellion against...