THE FAILURES OF MORAL CONVICTION
Scarlet Letter
Upholding rigid moral convictions can ultimately destroy oneself because of the need to stand by them. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Reverend Dimmesdale bears his sin of adultery as a sign that he is condemned. He allows his transgression to define who he is and haunt him for the rest of his life. In the novel, Hawthorne reveals that straying from one’s moral convictions allows for the acceptance of mistakes instead of harboring guilt for them.
Dimmesdale’s overwhelming sorrow for the sin he committed has caused him to become a sign of that sin. Although Dimmesdale is the reverend and preaches the Puritan values to the rest of the community, he keeps the secret of his adultery inside eating away at himself. His constant guilt ultimately leads to him going to the scaffold, “half frozen to death” (Hawthorne 137). Dimmesdale’s constant repentance for his sin shows how his sin has now defined him. When he stood up in the middle of the night, “standing where Hester Prynne had stood” (Hawthorne 137), Dimmesdale wanted to ease some of the pain that he held because he was keeping this secret from the rest of society. His compulsion to get on the scaffold was propelled by his, “overwhelm[ing]…shame” (Hawthorne 137) towards Hester and the rest of Puritan society. His sin festered in his mind until he could no longer hold it in. Dimmesdale needed an outlet, or the remorse would destroy him. His need for forgiveness led to him wanting Hester, Pearl, and himself to get on the scaffold so they could repent for their sin together. Dimmesdale’s actions to pay repentance for his sin only made him closer and closer to letting them determine who he is.
Dimmesdale’s constant self-condemnation for his sin that went against his moral convictions cause the destruction of himself and eventually his death. Dimmesdale is always freaking out throughout the book about how he feels guilty for the sin he committed and how awful he feels because he has hidden his transgression from the rest of society. His convictions have been ingrained in him but when he commits this sin, he becomes a sign of that sin and wallows in despair because his mistake clashes with those convictions. Dimmesdale thinks that god “[gave] this burning torture to bear upon [his] breast” (Hawthorne 235) to punish him for going against his morals. Dimmesdale feels like god is against him which furthers his pain and shame because he believes that since he has gone against his convictions, he deserves to be in his state of misery and self-loathing. At the end of the novel, when Dimmesdale stands upon the scaffold again, he announces “The law [he] broke! - the sin here so awfully revealed...God…is merciful” (Hawthorne 235). After everything that Dimmesdale has put himself through, he finally breaks free by telling Puritan society the sin he committed. His outburst of truth shows how heavily his sin weighed on him because of his feelings of relief when he says that God is merciful even though he committed adultery. Since Dimmesdale feels so strongly about the guilt and the consequences of his sins, they start to define who he is until his whole character becomes a sinner, and he is engulfed in despair. His beliefs led to the destruction of himself and his declaration of his sin, “came forth with the minister’s expiring breath” (Hawthorne 235). Dimmesdale’s individual beliefs were too strongly tied to who his character was, creating a poisonous notion that going against them would lead to downfall.
Moral convictions are what define individuals’ values, but they should never define the individual as a whole. Hawthorne warns the readers by showing the demise of Dimmesdale’s character. His sorrow and shame for committing adultery not only led to his sin to become him but also to him feeling tortured for the rest of his life. Dimmesdale’s convictions were too strong and overwhelmed him till he died. Going against one’s moral convictions does not mean that those mistakes represent the individual. Learning from one’s sins takes forgiveness and redemption to be able to grow from those transgressions rather than letting them drive one to the grave.