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Arthur Dimmesdale

Arthur Dimmesdale. Occupation: Minister for the small community of Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts. Father of Pearl. Secret lover of Hester, Pearls mother. Doesn’t admit his involvement with Hester, until his guilty conscience gets to him.

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Arthur Dimmesdale

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  1. Arthur Dimmesdale Occupation: Minister for the small community of Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts. Father of Pearl. Secret lover of Hester, Pearls mother. Doesn’t admit his involvement with Hester, until his guilty conscience gets to him. Roger Chillingworth, husband of Hester, moves in with Arthur unaware that he is the father of Pearl. Chillingsworth swears revenge of the father of Pearl.

  2. Conflict Analysis- Arthur Dimmesdale In “The Scarlet Letter” Arthur Dimmesdale has many conflicts with other characters in the story, but Dimmesdale also mainly has an internal conflict with himself. Through out the story Dimmesdales guilt of not coming clean about being Pearls father eats at him everyday. Dimmesdalealways preaches to the people at church that committing adultery is a major sin. Since he’s a minister, he should feel even worse since he had committed that sin. A random citizen states, “that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation.”48/49 This statement should also get to Dimmesdale because he preaches that being involved in a scandal is a sin to the people, and he went against what he preached.

  3. Conflict Analysis- Arthur Dimmesdale At the end of chapter 23, Dimmesdale finally admits to the people that he is the father of Pearl. Dimmesdale calls Pearl and Hester to come upon the scafford, and he admits, “ye, that have loved me! Ye, that have deemed me holy! Behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!...I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this women, whose arms, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitharward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face. Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! Wherever her walk hath been,…it hath cast a lurid gleam of awe and horrible repugnance round about her. But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose brand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered!”(227) Dimmesdale is admitting to being the father of Pearl. He is showing the people how guilty he has felt for 7 years. Dimmesdale had an “A” engraved on to his chest. The narrator exclaims, “With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministrial band from before his breast. It was revealed…For an instant, the gaze of the horror-stricken multitude was concentrated on the ghastly miracle.”(228) Dimmesdale felt so guilty that an “A” was torturously engraved onto his bare chest.

  4. Conflict Analysis- Arthur Dimmesdale After Dimmesdale admits to being the father of Pearl and reveals his “A”, the narrator says, "a spell was broken ... her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled.“(229) Dimmesdale dies right after on the scafford.

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