The Unconfessed Sin. Arthur Dimmesdale's Guilt and Suffering

Seminar paper from the year 2020 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 3,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: While one might argue that Hester Prynne is the one who, due to the public shaming by the community, suffers most in Nathanial Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter, I claim that on the basis of Reformed theology, which marks the foundation of Puritan doctrine, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale proves to be the predominantly suffering protagonist in the novel. In order to validate my thesis, I will structure the term paper as follows: In the first section, I will briefly outline the spiritual background of seventeenth-century Puritanism in America and elaborate its main doctrines concerning the sin of adultery and the doctrines of repentance and confession. This will be done by means of the number one authority of the Puritans at that time, namely the King James Bible. In this context, I am going to consult the Institutes of the Christian Religion by the French Reformer John Calvin, which function as another basis of Puritan doctrine. In the second section, I will analyze Dimmesdale's bad conscience and how as a result, his ministry as a preacher tortures him. The third section will deal with the influence Hester Prynne's husband, Roger Chillingworth, has on Dimmesdale's suffering, while the fourth section will be concisely devoted to Hester Prynne's suffering. I will conclude this paper by summarizing the arguments throughout the different sections supporting my thesis statement.