FREE ESSAY ON SCARLET LETTER: BEWILDERMENT AT THE HANDS OF SIN

SCARLET LETTER: BEWILDERMENT AT THE HANDS OF SIN

Jane Manwelyan
Bewilderment at the Hands of Sin
No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the
multitude without finally becoming bewildered as to which may be true. In Nathaniel
Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, this quote applies to the two main characters of the
novel. It applies to Arthur Dimmesdale in a literal way; he clearly is not the man that
he appears to be, and the guilt that goes along with such deception consumes him and, in
the end, is the cause for his demise. The quote also applies to Hester Prynne, but in
quite a different way. It was not her choice to wear the face that she was forced to
wear, but the scarlet letter on her bosom determined how people saw her and, in turn, how
she was expected to feel about herself. At first, however, Hester did not consider the
sin which she committed as blasphemous and horrible as the people of Boston did, but she
was forced to wear the face of an evil doer. For both Hester and Arthur, it was true that
they could not live their lives concealing their true emotions. Arthur literally could
not live with it, while Hester changed the way she felt on the inside to correspond to
her guilty image.
At the court house, when Arthur Dimmesdale was pleading for Hester to reveal the name of
the man with whom she had an affair, it was clear that a part of him actually wanted
everyone to know that it was he who was the guilty one. 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...better were it so, than to hide a guilty heart through life,(47). When this
plea is made, it at first glance appears to be quite ironic. The actual man who committed
the crime is trying to convince his accomplice to do him in. However, this statement
shows that Arthur was not simply a confused man; it was much more extreme that that. 
He was bewildered to the point where a part of him really wanted Hester to let the whole
town know that it was he who was the guilty one. Whether he meant to or not, Arthur did
sound extremely convincing in his speech, which makes the reader understand that he was
being pulled in two completely opposite directions. A part of him wanted more than
anything to have the weight of this secret sin lifted from his conscience; another part
of him, arguably the practical part, knew that he could never let the people know the
truth. His facade and image were much too important not only to him, but to the entire
community. If he had admitted to everyone what he had done, then he would have been seen,
not only as a hypocrite, but a betrayer of everyone's trust. Some people inthe community
might have even started doubting the religion because, if this man who they considered
holy and righteous, could not live a sin free life, then how could they? Clearly, Arthur
was asking these questions as well, and the world in which he had lived in a had served
so faithfully in was beginning to close in on him. It was because of this that his health
began to fail and his body could, at the end, no longer handle the weight and sadness of
his soul. His spirit had been lost long before his body gave out. 
Both Hester and Arthur struggled with the question of whether or not what they had done
was a true sin and whether or not there was utter truth in the words and ideologies of
the towns people. The two of them did not simply sleep together out of lust and
recklessness; they were truly in love and, at the time, they both believed that what they
did had a consecration of its own(134). This meant that there was an aspect of holiness
in what they did; it was something pure and even sacred to them at the time. Whether they
were truly in love, or whether it was passion, or a combination of the two, both Arthur
and Hester were faced with the question of whether what they did was truly a sin. They
had to ask themselves an extremely difficult question and what the people of Boston
thought was irrelevant to the question, because they were dealing with the way that God
felt and looked upon their supposed consecration and, perhaps even more importantly, how
they felt about what they had done. 
Both Arthur and Hester decided that they had committed a true sin and that it was, as all
sins are, wrong. Arthur was so miserable and felt so torn and guilty that there was no
way for him to believe that what they had done had any elements of purity and goodness.
He felt nothing but despair(131), he was most miserable(131), and he knew that they would
receive their punishments on judgement day by the only one true judge: God. Arthur was
torn because he could not live with the weight of the secret sin, but he could not
imagine making it public. It was because of this, that his health began to deteriorate
and his spirit was losing all of its strength and character. His form grew emaciated; his
voice...had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it,(82) which meant that it became
clear that he was not on his way to recovery but, vice versa, on his way to death and
decay. 
Hester lost her spirit as well, but she dealt with the in a completely different way.
Instead of completely giving up all hope, Hester decided that the people of Boston were
right in labelling her and placing the A on her. She did not, at first, think that what
her and Arthur did was evil. In fact, she labels their act as having been holy and
completely unprofane. However, at some point in her life, she decided that what they did
in fact was a sin. She did not start seeing herself as a bad person, and neither did the
townspeople because they eventually took the A on her chest to stand for Able. What she
did do was give up her dreams and goals of leading a revolution to make people see women
and the world in a new way. When she internalized what the A had stood for throughout all
of those years, and what the townspeople truly thought of her and especially of what she
had done, she abandoned her hopes for influencing the way others thought and realized the
impossibility that any mission of divine and mysterious truth should be confided to a
woman stained with sin, [or] bowed down with shame,(180). Hester admitted to having
committed a true sin and, therefore, being filled with shame and remorse for what she and
Arthur and done.
For both Arthur and Hester, there is a struggle with their identities. Arthur was not
able to handle the guilt and shame that went along with his secret. He became so torn and
bewildered, that his health began to deteriorate and he, eventually died because he could
not bare the sadness of his life. Hester dealt with the sin in a completely different way
not only because she was a different person, but because there was no additional weight
of a secret that went along with the sin. Instead of trying to figure out her identity,
the way Arthur had, and clinging onto the belief that what she had done was not a sin,
she allowed herself to surrender and believe what the rest of society believed at that
time. The people of Boston saw adultery as a sin, and there was no way that any good or
love could come out of it. When Arthur's character is tested, he struggles to find the
answer but is unable to, and literally dies trying. Hester, on the other hand, does not
give such a noble attempt, but rather choses, whether consciously or not, to go along
with the mainstream views of adultery.