Imagine going through your life carrying only a deep, dark secret with you. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne brings you into the live of four diverse characters that go through the ups and downs with keeping a huge sin within them. Hawthorne writes about how this sin destroys their life and brings along guilt and shame that they face throughout their judgmental Puritan community. As I explore in depth two of the main characters, Dimmesdale and Hester, I will compare and contrast just how they dealt with this sin that they kept hush, and how it slowly killed them.

Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, is a young clergy man who is well respected in his harsh community of strict Puritans is to condemn the punishment of wearing a scarlet A on her breast to who ever committed such a crime as adultery. As he gives such a punishment to Hester Prynne, the adulterer, the town applauds him that much more for doing what is right and punishing the wrong. At first Dimmesdale gains a certain power, strength from doing this, but that strength is slowly burned out leaving Dimmesdale anything but strong mentally, and physically. Dimme

Hester on the other hand, has had time to adjust to her mortal sin, getting use to the fact that she must be punished. Throughout the seven years that have pasted, Hester goes form being the most looked down person in the town to becoming looked upon. Because she dealt with her sin upfront, and didn’t try to hide it, unlike Dimmesdale, she is rewarded with an early repentance of forgiveness. By her wearing her A on the outside of her heart, it does not stay there unlike Dimmesdale who keeps his tucked in deep inside so no one could see. “The rulers and the wise and learned men of the community were longer in acknowledging the influence of Hester’s good qualities than the people.“ (Hawthorne 141). Hester becomes conferrable with her self accepting what she did, and putting that behind her. She is able to start a new because in a way she has forgiven herself along with her town.

By Hester publicly repenting for her sin, she earns a certain respect from her peers. By Dimmesdale hiding his sin within him makes him more of a coward it is only hurting him. Dimmesdale’s effect of his sin has caused him a lifetime full of painful sickness that would have been forgotten, j

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