Scarlet Letter 6

1.) "He[Dimmesdale] had told his hearers that he was altogether vile...they heard it all, and did but reverence him the more...He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood...Therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self!" (Hawthorne 131).

I cannot imagine what Dimmesdale is going through. Firstly, he has a terrible shame eating away at his core. He has to keep hidden a hypocrisy that, as long as it is hidden, torments him to no end, day and night. He has to keep this secret from the very people that venerate him as an angel. Secondly, when he tries to tell them the truth, they do not believe him! How frustrating that must be! Dimmesdale came clean to his followers that he is not the holy man they make him out to be, and yet they take it as a sign of humility on his part. That must only deepen the shame he feels for having disappointed these people, if even when he tells the horrible truth, they think him a martyr still. Even more so, Dimmesdale hates himself because of it all. He committed adultery with Hester, but Hester got the punishment, while got off free. And now, everyone is praising him when he did just as much as Hester in the sin. He goes to such lengths as to whip himself in punishment: "Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it[the whip] on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh" (132). Dimmesdale whips himself as the only punishment he receives, but laughs bitterly as he does it. Then, because of that laugh, he whips harder! It is a vicious, endless cycle that has sprung from his shame and hatred. All the while, Chillingworth lurks silently in the background, goading him on. This is what Chillingworth means to do--the shame, the frustration, and the hatred are eating away at Dimmesdale slowly until he finally breaks, but the road to that point is sure to be harsh and cruel.