Everyone at some point in their live has committed a sin. Whether it’s a small mistake or a major one, for certain people, especially religious ones, consider these mistakes to be a massive issue. These people often because of their opinions, judge others for the mistakes or sins they do. They criticize others and act like if they were innocent and had never done a mistake before. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the major themes of this novel is sin. Using this theme, Hawthorne shows us that people always have a habit of overseeing the fact that we all have committed sins at various points of our lifetime.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, is a beautiful young woman who lives in a Puritan village in Boston. Hester makes the mistake of committing an adultery sin and because of this, the result is her pregnancy. As soon as the townspeople begin to notice Hester’s growing womb each day, they realize that Hester had committed adultery and they put her in jail. After Hester’s has her baby, who she names Pearl, she is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A,” on her bosom, “a mark of shame,” for the “remainder of her natural life.” Once the people see Hester come out of the prison door they begin to criticize her at once, mainly the women. The women form their own opinions about Hester’s punishment and believe that Hester’s punishment wasn’t enough. Several of them think that she should have been “put the brand of a hot iron on [her] forehead,” or that she “ought to die.” Although these women notice that Hester “hath good skill at her needle” work, they believe that “this brazen hussy” arranged “such a way of showing it” by creating herself the scarlet letter in such a stunning way. Hawthorne also shows that these women are jealous of Hester’s beauty because he states that “the ugliest as well as the most pitiless of these self – constituted” women are the ones who comment a lot about Hester.
In addition to her punishment, she is also “to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of [a] pillory,” where she has to display her scarlet letter to the townspeople and be shamed as retribution for her sin. During the time that Hester would stand in the scaffold Hawthorne states that the people were “stern enough to look upon her death,” and they would “find only a theme for jest in [the] exhibition” of Hester. The people turned Hester’s exhibition “into ridicule.” Although Hester hated all of the “stings and venomous stabs of public contumely,” she wanted to look at all those firm faces “contorted with scornful merriment.” The puritans also considered Hester’s sin to be one of her “evil doings.” However, it is very clear that Hester’s sin was one out of passion not malice for the reason that she “never” reveals her lover’s identity and that “she will not speak!” This shows that Hester was in love and truly had strong feelings for her lover which caused her to commit the sin. However the Puritans have little and no sympathy for her they treat her like an outcast. Each and every time Hester “came in contact” with one of them they “implied, and often expressed, that she was banished.” Wherever she walked and women saw her they “were accustomed to distil drops of bitterness into her heart.” The Puritans criticized Hester all time and called her names, meanwhile they too had some wickedness of their own that they didn’t seem to realize.
Hawthorne later on reveals that the father of Pearl is Reverend Dimmesdale. He was the one who committed adultery with Hester. However, none of the townspeople know this because he hides this secret from everyone. Dimmesdale feels very guilty and miserable for the sin he committed. He is constantly being “gnawed and tortured by some black trouble” in his “soul” and feels a “prick and anguish” every day of his life. Throughout the novel it is revealed that Dimmesdale has a very “guilty conscience” and is ashamed of himself for being a “hypocrite.” The townspeople, view Dimmesdale as one of the most pure and righteous people in the town for the reason that he is the priest. However, the way the townspeople appreciate him and “deem” about him, like he’s a holy saint, torments him more because he knows who he really is. Dimmesdale finds ways to torture himself for the sin he did by whipping himself with “a bloody scourge” and “laughing bitterly at himself.”
Although Dimmesdale suffers a lot because of this guilt he has inside, he has great success as a minister. He has won this by “his sorrows” for the reason that he knows what it feels like to make mistakes and feel guilty, therefore, he can relate to the people. For that reason, the way he expresses himself using “his power of experiencing and communicating emotion” makes him very popular and great. Dimmesdale becomes an honored man by everyone in the village. However, by the end of the novel, after Dimmedale gives one of the most glorious sermons, he notices Hester and Pearl in front of the scaffold. He then calls them and tells them to go up with them in the scaffold. Once they are all standing together on the scaffold he confesses to the townspeople that he committed the same sin that Hester did. He tells them, “ye, that have loved me!—ye, that have deemed me holy!—behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!—at last!—I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood.” He then “with a convulsive motion…“the tore away the ministerial band from before his breast” and reveals an imprinted scarlet letter on his flesh to the people. The revelation of the letter shocks everyone who witnesses it and leaves them “horror-stricken.” As Dimmesdale says his goodbyes to Hester and Pearl the “multitude [is] silent” till he dies and then they break “out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder.”
Through revealing the scarlet letter, Dimmesdale, “made the manner of his death a parable” to teach the townspeople and “his admirers [a] mighty and mournful lesson.” He taught them that “in the view of Infinite Purity (God), we are sinners all alike.” It was a lesson to demonstrate to them that even “the holiest among us has but attained so far above his fellows as to discern more clearly the Mercy which looks down,” on them. As well as to show them to reject more completely “the phantom of human merit,” that would seem to be ambitiously increasing. Some people learned this lesson while others didn’t.
Nathaniel Hawthorne through theme of sin teaches us that “we are all equally sinners.” The puritans treated Hester like an outcast and like if she was one of the most worthless persons. They very often criticized her. Yet, hey believed that Dimmesdale was the purest among them and they were very stunned to discover that they were mistaken. Dimmesdale had committed the same exact sin Hester had done. Therefore, when Dimmesdale revealed his secret, it teaches everyone “that even the holiest among us” makes mistakes and is able of a committing a sin. Nowadays people always tend to act like the puritans, they judge others for the mistake they make and they don’t have any sympathy for them. They oversee the fact that “we are all…sinners.” People will always makes errors and commit sins. It’s always going to be part of life, it’s something that you can’t escape, and we aren’t perfect after all. Therefore, we should take into consideration that we are all alike in being flawed; no one can never be perfect and not ever make mistakes.