Dimmesdale as the Greatest Sinner

Dimmesdale as the Greatest Sinner in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, the Scarlet Letter, the person that commits the greatest sin is Dimmesdale because while he claims to suffer inwardly he does not choose to own up to his responsibility and suffer the consequences for his actions. This is compounded by the fact that he allows Hester to suffer for years for the sin that both have committed. In the end, Dimmesdale emerges as a weak coward that allows others to suffer for his actions because when finally decides to come clean, he decides that death is the only way out.

Dimmesdale demonstrates that he is more concerned with himself than he is for anybody else when he is speaking to Bellingham, Wilson, and Chillingworth about letting Hester keep Pearl. It seems like he is doing a good deed by pleading on Hester's behalf and his speech is peppered with notions that should convict him, yet he speaks without even a stutter. For example, he has no problem asserting that Hester is a "poor, sinful woman" (Hawthorne 108) that should be allowed to keep Pearl not because she is her flesh and blood but to "remind her, at every moment, of her fall - but yet to teach her" (108). While many can argue that the man is arguing for a good cause, it is clear that he could have done so without painting Hester out to be a person of less integrity.

While Dimmesdale does appear to suffer for what has happened, we cannot see this as justice enough. When he becomes ill and thinks, "If Providence should see it fit to remove him, it would be because of his own unworthiness to perform his humblest mission on earth" (113), we must remember these are just thoughts. It is easy to think that the man is suffering because of his guilt, which arguably is true but we can also add to that dose of guilt a sense of shame for allowing Hester and Pearl bear the brunt of their combined sin. He never had to pay the kind of price that Hester had to pay. While many may claim that the Puritan society in which Dimmesdale lived caused him to behave like he did is certainly no excuse. We cannot look to our circumstances for reasons to do anything wrong. Dimmesdale is no different from the young boy that grows up in an abusive household beating his wife and claiming that he is not responsible because of his environment.

Finally, Dimmesdale's suicide is the ultimate gesture of his weakness. He cannot be honest with those that assume to know him. He claims in these last moments that he withheld his "own heavy sin and miserable agony" (244) and now must let the truth be known. This is a brave move and it would have been even braver to live after confessing. Instead, he takes his own life. Many may assume that he took his own life because of grief and inner turmoil but it makes more sense to assume that he could not live with what he had done and he could not have lived with the kind of life that the truth would have offered him. He was a coward that finally buckled under pressure because a real man would not have left Hester and Pearl alone after what they had already experienced.