Character Change in the Scarlet Letter

Character Change in The Scarlet Letter

        Many people do not respond well to change, therefore causing a change in the person. This could include making positive or negative decisions, going through a certain experience, or even a change in environment.  As the events occur, and choices are made, many characters change within The Scarlet Letter.  Three major characters that drastically change include Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.  

        Hester Prynne starts out as a beautiful, powerful, and strong-willed woman. She is able to raise a child in a gloomy and dreadful environment. She uses her talents with sowing to transform her punishment into a piece of art. She is helpful to people of the lower class, despite her own poverty, even when they view her as nothing because of her committed sin. She is a legend within her Puritan community. After seven years of constantly being the mark of sin within her community she has changed.  She is a woman weighed down with the burden of dishonor and guilt.  She has been drained of some of her beauty, and drained of her lively, strong spirit.  In chapter five, Hawthorne states “Another peculiar torture was felt in the gaze of a new eye. When strangers looked curiously at the scarlet letter,—and none ever failed to do so,—they branded it afresh into Hester’s soul; so that, oftentimes, she could scarcely refrain, yet always did refrain, from covering the symbol with her hand” (79).  This shows how Hester is daily viewed as nothing by her community and one can see how it can bring a human down. Although over the years she has changed into a dull and drained women, she still has courage and pride because she “always refrained from covering the symbol with her hand”.

        Reverend Dimmesdale has changed considerably for the worse.  He starts out as a young, and bright, innocent man. After he had committed his sin with Hester Prynne it all began to fall. Once the guilt overcame him, his physical and spiritual deterioration began. In chapter eleven Hawthorne states “While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy, the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale had achieved a brilliant popularity in his sacred office. He won it, indeed, in great part by his sorrows” (128). This piece shows the physical and mental decline of Dimmesdale. He even begins to go insane towards the end of the novel.  For example, he wanted to tell a man of his church that communion is nothing, and that is means nothing, and he is wasting his time. This is the “sainted” Reverend Dimmesdale. He also performs self-torture on himself. As one can see, he started out as a young man living life to its fullest, then when overcome with extreme guilt of his sin and lying about it, he slowly loses his mind.