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Sala Al-Maani
Professor Gocinski
ENGL 2130
8 November 2023
Essay Draft
In the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Dimmesdale is the physical embodiment of Puritan beliefs, which is accompanied by the fact that he is a minister of a Puritan
community. This then leads to the decline of his psyche and physical health. One of the core beliefs of Puritanism includes redemptive suffering which drove Dimmesdale into a state of mental and physical decay.
Dimmesdale models Puritan expectations of redemptive suffering- which is the idea that in order to absolve the need for punishment of sin, one must suffer one way or another. An article
talks about how Puritan society largely believed “that suffering in faith was one of the most reliable signs for believers to know if grace had been bestowed,” and that “If ministers wanted to
temper the brash tendencies … to root out hypocrites, they found that advocating a suffering discipleship was their best tool,” (Nelson 7). Suffering is a large part of spiritual absolution in Puritan society which, especially as a minister, was modeled by Dimmesdale’s choice to maintain his silence regarding his sinful actions with Hester. Specifically, in regard to hypocrisy, ministers would usually use the idea of redemptive suffering to know if they have redeemed their
character in the eyes of God. An article states that “Reverend Mister Arthur Dimmesdale is usually understood to be guilty of two sins, one of commission (his adultery with Hester) and one of omission (his cowardly and hypocritical failure to confess)” (Pimple 257). In regard to hypocrisy, Dimmesdale had used the tactic of redemptive suffering as a way to exonerate his
sins, which were not only taught to him as a member of a Puritan society but as the minster of said society.
The subjection to spiritual suffering led to the decay of Arthur Dimmesdale’s mental and physical health.
Works Cited
Bhattacharjee, Subhayu. “The ‘New’ World?: Space, Religion and The Identity of Hester Prynne in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter
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Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter
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Century Literature
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Nelson, Benjamin Ryan. “‘We Also Glory in Our Sufferings:’ David Brainerd and the Primacy of Suffering in Early Anglo-American Evangelicalism.” eScholarship, University of California
, 17 May 2016, escholarship.org/uc/item/0dk1n0jj.