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

Dimmesdale and Hesters Quest for Identity in The Scarlet Letter While allegory is an explicit and tempting reading of Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, I see in this novel also the potential of a psychological reading, interpreting it as a search for ones own self. two Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne goes through this process and finally succeeded in finding the duality of ones personality, and the impossibility of complementing the split between individual and community identity. However, they were compelled to take different paths on this journey, and they match quite differently when they finally arrive at the conclusion of this search. Dimmesdale and Hester start out from the same point their adultery. This sin shakes them out of place from their tracks, and begins their long and sticky journey. Dimmesdales crime is kept secret, but it does not mean that he can forget it or deny it. As a well-respected minister, he stands at the center of his community, being the advocate o f 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 to a greater extent conscious of them than anyone else. The values he holds condemn him with a strong sense of guilt, precisely because he is his own prosecutor. The pain is acute because not only has he sinned, but he has to concede the secret of it It was inconceivable, the agony with which this public veneration tortured him He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at the full height of his voice, and specialize the people what he was. I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie (143) Not only does he deliver to bear the guilt of his crime, but h... ...uld have grown ripe for it, in Heavens own time, a new truth would be revealed, in gild to establish the whole relation between man and woman on a surer ground of mutual happiness. (263) As Dimmesdale represents the society-bound person, oppressing his passions, and Hester the societys exile, proudly denying her pick out for social support, the sad truth they discover, although through different ways, is one of the same that one needs both individual freedom and social belonging. Although it is impossible for them to have both, and complete 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.