Dealing with Guilt in The Scarlett Letter

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne displays two different ways that two sinners, Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, manage their guilt and methods of punishment.  Both are guilty of the same sin.  Hester and Dimmesdale both committed adultery.  Hester’s sin however is the only one made public because of the evidence in the birth of their child Pearl.  Hester must be disciplined for her sin under the surveillance of the people of Boston while Dimmesdale suffers from the guilt of his sin and watching Hester suffer from public criticism and humiliation.  It is easier to believe that Dimmesdale could have coped with his problem, but in the end he experiences a fate much worse than Hester.

            At the beginning of the story Hester is taken from the prison to the market place.  While there on the scaffold of pillory, the large crowd of men and women rebuked her.  Her punishment, the scarlet letter, is revealed on her breast.  It is the letter A symbolizing adultery.  Several women argue that this punishment is too lenient for the crime.  Another woman said that Hester deserved to die.  The puritans of this time used the Bible as their law.  The seventh commandment says not to commit adultery and the punishment for a sin against this was death in the Old Testament.  This is why some believed the punishment was too lenient.  For the next few hours, she stood on scaffold, fully revealed to the crowd, displaying the scarlet A and her position of shame.  She stood there elegantly trying to ignore the situation she was in by remembering the past.  She remembered her husband, Roger Chillingworth.  Later, she recognizes him in the crowd. 

            Meanwhile, Reverend Dimmesdale sat on a balcony looking at Hester.  He was well liked by the people of Boston and therefore was urged to make Hester confess who the father was.  He asked her to tell.  He said, “Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for , believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on thy pedestal of shame, yet better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life.  What can silence do for him, except it tempt him- yea, compel him, as it were- to add hypocrisy to sin?”  Dimmesdale was secretly telling her to tell them that he was the father.  He knew that it would be better to admit his sin and that he would be a hypocrite not to do so.  He was hypocritical in that he would be giving the impression that he was a good guy even though he should have been there with Hester.  However, she did not tell and Dimmesdale did not confess.  He knew the guilt would torture him but was too afraid to admit his sin because of his high place among the people.  Later she was brought back to prison in the same harsh manner in which she was taken out.