Scarlet Letter Essay

Scarred Inside and Out “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” This quote by William Shakespeare, a famous English poet and playwright, greatly explains the lives of Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth in Nathanial Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. From the moment the shimmering, scarlet A is placed on Hester’s chest these characters lives are altered forever. When one thinks of a character being marked for greatness they usually visualize a heroic destiny or a happy ending, but as Thomas C. Foster explains in How to Read Literature Like a College Professor, that is not always the case. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, the reader finds that not only is Hester Prynne marked, but Reverend Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are as well. Hester steps out of prison into a bright, sunny day with only a glistening red A on her chest and a newborn in her arms, both representations of the mistake she made. Every member of the community watches as Hester makes her way to the scaffold “. . . she took the baby on her arm, and, with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at her townspeople and neighbors,” (Hawthorne 37). Despite all of these negative feelings clouding the air, Hester is still able to hold her head high and not let the townspeople take her down. She finds the ability to use this permanent mark as a way to hide her pain and fade away from reality as if “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and inclosing her in a sphere by herself,” (Hawthorne 37). This time alone in her mind gives Hester a moment to cope with the situation at hand. As the years go by, the townspeople learn to recognize Hester’s A not as a sign of her sin, but as a sign of the struggles she is facing. In the last years of her life “the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, yet with reverence too,” (Hawthorne 179). What was once something to be ridiculed and looked down upon the townspeople now see as strength and courage. Hester Prynne’s scarlet A is not sign for the people to avoid her anymore, but to approach her with their problems to seek guidance. Although Hester Prynne is able to turn her mark into something good, not every character is so fortunate. Reverend Dimmesdale marks himself physically and emotionally from the devastation of his mistake of having intercourse with Hester. While standing on the scaffold, begging Hester to reveal the man who commits the sin with her, the Reverend astonishingly says “”She will not speak!” murmured Mr. Dimmesdale, who, leaning over the balcony, with his hand upon his heart, had awaited the result of his appeal,” (Hawthorne 48). Though Dimmesdale’s mark is not outwardly shown as Hester’s is, it is still taking a toll on his body mentally, emotionally and physically. Many times the reader will find Dimmesdale gripping his chest in agonizing pain, which Roger Chillingworth diagnoses as an emotional ailment rather than a physical ailment. Thomas C. Foster explains this problem as when “[A character] elects to employ a fragile heart as a device to deceive [another character], to be able to construct an elaborate personal fiction based on heart disease, to announce to the world that he or she suffers from a “bad heart,” (Foster 212). What appears to be heart disease on the outside may just be a mask to an empty heartache. The only character able to see past this mask is Roger Chillingworth as he describes it as “A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part,” (Hawthorne 93). As Dimmesdale’s body deteriorates over time, Roger Chillingworth decides the culprit of this illness is a

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