Scarlet Letter

¶ … Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter is secrecy. Each of the book's central characters: Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale, possess a secret related to his or her identity. Hester hides the truth behind her adulterous affair and shrouds the identity of Pearl's father. However, Hester lives with public scorn, as she has to wear the titular scarlet letter on her breast. Hester's husband Chillingworth directly hides his identity; only Hester knows the truth about the vengeful doctor.

While both Hester and Chillingworth keep their secrets mainly hidden from the public, they nevertheless live much as they would like, within the confines of their secrets. For instance, Hester pursues her embroidery and charity work and humbly accepts her fate. Chillingworth dedicates his new life in America to both being a doctor and to exacting revenge on Hester and her lover. On the other hand, Dimmesdale does not wear his secret well and despite his eloquence and gift for sermons, he does not live true to his heart.

Dimmesdale thus proves to be the character that lives for appearances, rather than for reality, as he ascribes to societal expectations over the dictates of his own heart. As a minister, Arthur Dimmesdale feels especially restricted the Puritan culture in which he lives. Unfortunately, the otherwise good man is made into a hypocrite over his fears of revealing the truth of his affair with Hester.

Early in the story, in Chapter Three he speaks to Hester in front of a crowd of people, urging her to reveal the identity of Pearl's father. Ironically, he is begging her to reveal that which both he and Hester struggle to keep secret.

Foreshadowing later events and hinting at his own culpability, Dimmesdale tells 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." (8th paragraph from the end). Dimmesdale shows one face to the public and to Hester and another face to himself. Tortured by shame and guilt, Dimmesdale cannot live with the reality of his sin.

Instead, he chooses to live according to the dictates and expectations of a Puritanical society. Dimmesdale's guilty heart becomes a central symbol of The Scarlet Letter, as it is his unwillingness to live with the truth of his love for Hester that leads to his downfall and death. In Chapter Ten, he and Chillingworth engage in a telling conversation about the nature of secrecy and the consequences of burying the truth.

Dimmesdale tells Chillingworth that many people "keep silent by the very constitution of their nature," and "shrink from displaying themselves black and filthy in the views of men." (paragraph beginning with "True, there are such men," about halfway through Chapter 10). Here, Dimmesdale reveals his attachment to self-image and his choice of appearance over reality. His secrecy, further symbolized by the unrevealed "scar" on his chest, stands in direct contrast to Hester's having to wear the scarlet letter outright.

Dimmesdale lives not as he would like but as others would like for him to live. Rather than accept the reality of his culpability in adultery and admitting the truth in public, Dimmesdale chooses to chastise himself and thus creates his own ill health. "Suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured.