The Sin of Ego

“Never did a man suffer what this man has suffered” (Hawthorne 155). Yes, ‘never had a man suffered’ what Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale has suffered, all except Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and many more. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Dimmesdale is depicted as a poor, tortured man suffering from the pains of his own guilt and remorse. He simply thinks of nothing and no one but this deep tragedy which is his life, the life he so impulsively brought upon himself. This guilt Dimmesdale so painfully endures is brought about by his affair with Hester Prynne – who also experiences deep guilt and shame for the sin they both took part in – although while Dimmesdale undergoes these traumas in private, Hester is forced to endure them publicly and on her own. He is the sole antagonist of this book. Some may say that the scarlet letter is the true antagonist of the book, however is Dimmesdale not a partial creator of the sin which the scarlet letter feeds on? He is the sole reason Hester stays in Boston – the place of her prosecution and shame, he is the reason Chillingworth devotes his life to revenge, and he keeps Hester pining for a love that herself and the readers are unsure of.

Dimmesdale causes many life altering problems, one of which being that Hester stays in Boston. Hester, having committed adultery, is charged with the task of wearing that scarlet letter for as long as her mortal life should allow it. Now Hester is only condemned by a small puritan community, in a small colonial Boston; what is stopping her from fleeing and starting a new life without the weight of the letter on her bosom and the shame that it carries? No one would follow her; she is the town social exile, to be seen with her is to be exiled yourself. She has the ability to make her own living and support her newly-born daughter, Pearl; so why does she stay? According to the narrator, her reason to stay is “half truth, and half a self-delusion” (Hawthorne 72), where the truth that is hidden consists of her barred love for Dimmesdale. 

“The chain that bound her here was of iron links, and galling to her inmost soul, but never could be broken… There dwelt, there trode the feet of one with who she deemed herself connected in a union, that, unrecognized on earth, would bring them together before the bar of final judgment, and make that their marriage-altar, for a joint futurity of endless retribution” (Hawthorne 72).

The narrator explains Hester’s thoughts on why she does not flee Boston; these thoughts in particular are those she, in the end, decides to ignore as the true reason. Hester is, overall, thinking of Dimmesdale and his connection to her. ‘The feet of one…she deemed herself connected in a union… unrecognized on earth,’ speaks to the fact that she and Dimmesdale are, in fact, united in that they both share their sin; however this union is unrecognized on earth because it is only Hester who knows Dimmesdale committed adultery with her. The use of metaphor in ‘the chain that bound her… never could be broken,’ addresses the power Dimmesdale has over Hester’s freedom. He is undoubtedly the reason she stays in Boston; her hopes to be with him in ‘endless retribution,’ or their punishment for sinning, and to be united under a form of ‘marriage-altar’ is the reason Hester stays. She gives up the freedom from shame to endure the possibility of their love. It may have been easier for Hester to simply hate Dimmesdale for his cowardice, as did Chillingworth. 

“She gives up the freedom from shame to endure the possibility of their love.”

This hatred Dimmesdale involks in Chillingworth leads him to live a life centered on revenge. Chillingworth, who is the long-lost husband of a sinning Hester Prynne, comes home to find his wife as the main spectacle of town, displaying​​ two new marks of shame, the scarlet letter and a f​​atherless child. When he comes home, he expects to see Hester as the woman he loves and married: “beheld the woman, in whom he hoped to find embodied the warmth and cheerfulness of home” (Hawthorne 106). When he doesn’t, it fills Chillingworth with an unexplainable rage, “a writhing horror twisted itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them” (Hawthorne 55), and convinces him to seek revenge on the being that took the love that was once in his and Hester’s union. While the sin of adultery is committed by both Hester and Dimmesdale, Chillingworth has an unrequited, unresolved love for Hester that persuades him to somewhat look past her wrongdoings and towards Dimmesdale’s. We see this love when Hester recalls her life with him before her acts with Dimmesdale, 

“he used to emerge at eventide from the seclusion of his study, and sit down in the fire light of their home and in the light of her nuptial smile. He needed to bask himself in that smile, he said, in order that the chill of so many lonely hours… might be taken off the scholar’s heart” (Hawthorne 160). 

This clearly shows the love and dependence Chillingworth places on Hester, and therefore, the depth of his feelings when he realizes that had been taken away; possibly made worse by the fact that the man who had taken his wife’s love and honor, also hid behind his own pride and ego. As the book goes on, we see Chillingworth become more consumed and dependent on the task of torturing Dimmesdale for this very reason. The reader notices this dependence in the final scenes: when Dimmesdale confesses his sin, Chillingworth no longer has a reason to live and, therefore, dies. If it weren’t for Dimmesdale and his incapability to come forward, Chillingworth could have stayed the intelligent, kind-hearted scholar that he was.  This is why Dimmesdale is the antagonist in Chillingworth’s story; just one story of the many that Dimmesdale torments with his cowardice and inability to look past himself. 

Dimmesdale also puts Hester through her own, separate, kind of torture with his oblivion towards her soul. Throughout the whole book, we are filled with the suspension and notion of Hester and Dimmesdale’s deep, unquestionable love. Seemingly, they have a love so strong they, a man and woman of God and devotion, simply had to overlook their morals and ideals to be together, even though it was only for a short period of time. In almost each passage of the book we see Hester’s love for Dimmesdale; in the way she keeps his secret to both the town and Chillingworth, and in the way her thoughts are mostly consumed with his well being. Hester even claims once to have a responsibility to him and only him: “having cast off all duty towards other human beings, there remained a duty towards him… I have acted a false part by the only man to whom the power was left me to be true” (Hawthorne 154).  This quote not only explains her devotion, but also the singularity of her feelings towards Dimmesdale. We even see in Dimmesdale’s dying scene Hester continuing with this want and devotion to him. “‘Shall we not spend our immortal lives together?’… ‘Hush, Hester, hush!’ said he, with tremulous solemnity” (Hawthorne 234). In this passage the reader sees Dimmesdale’s dying words to Hester. With such a build up and strong foundation for the two of them to create some epic love story that could amount to Shakespeare, with the notion that Dimmesdale could love Hester just as deeply as she loves him, the reader is met with such a disappointment as Dimmesdale shushing Hester, in the middle of her love proclamation! It’s not only during this scene that we see Dimmesdale’s lack of concern for Hester, but during the entirety of the book. Dimmesdale again and again is only concerned with himself and his own guilt, never once thinking about the consequences Hester must publicly face daily. For this reason, Dimmesdale is the antagonist in his own love story; he is the roadblock Hester must find a way to get around in order to reach him. 

Overall, while Dimmesdale is being paraded about as a poor, sad soul, he is really the villain. He makes Hester stay in the place of her shame and condemnation just for the idea of love that he blatantly ignores despite her heart. He forces Chillingworth into a life of revenge and sadness when he selfishly constrains the reach of Hester’s love, and cannot make up for the love she lost. Finally, he causes Hester to live a life of pining and loneliness just because he can’t look past himself. He is the antagonist in Hester’s, Chillingworth’s, and his own story. His inability to look past fame, honor, pride, and ego makes him become a man of dishonor and oblivion. There comes a time when he must ask himself: which is the greater sin? That which I share with another, or the character I become when I bury that said sin?