Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester’s Quest for Identity in Hawthornes S

Dimmesdale and Hesters Quest for Identity in The carmine Letter While allegory is an explicit and tempting reading of Hawthornes The crimson Letter, I see in this novel also the probable of a psychological reading, interpreting it as a search for atomic number 53s own self. Both Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne goes through this process and eventually succeeded in finding the duality of ones personality, and the impossibility of complementing the split between individual and corporation identity. However, they were compelled to take different paths on this journey, and they react quite differently when they finally arrive at the conclusion of this search. Dimmesdale and Hester start out from the same leg their adultery. This sin shakes them out of place from their tracks, and begins their long and difficult journey. Dimmesdales abhorrence is kept secret, but it does not mean that he can bar it or deny it. As a well-respected minister, he stands at the sharpen of his co mmunity, being the advocate of religious and moral standards of that Puritan society. Whereas the Puritans are as a whole stern and strict concerning evils and sins, he is even more(prenominal) conscious of them than anyone else. The values he holds condemn him with a strong sense experience of guilt, precisely because he is his own prosecutor. The pain is acute because not and has he sinned, but he has to bear the secret of it It was inconceivable, the agony with which this humankind veneration tortured him He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at the rich height of his voice, and tell the people what he was. I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie (143) Not simply does he have to bear the guilt of his crime, but h... ...uld have bounteous ripe for it, in Heavens own time, a mod truth would be revealed, in order to establish the whole analogy between man and woman on a surer ground of vernacular happiness. (263) As Dimme sdale represents the society-bound person, oppressing his passions, and Hester the societys exile, proudly denying her need for social support, the condemnable truth they discover, although through different ways, is one of the same that one involve both individual freedom and social belonging. Although it is impossible for them to have both, and make do themselves, at least they have come to the recognition of this truth. Works Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Oxford and New York Oxford University Press, 1998. Girgus, Sam B. Desire and The Political Unconsciousness in American Literature. New York St. Martins Press, 1990.