Scarlet Letter/Crucible Essay

Scott Pero

AP English Language-Mr. George

February 23, 2010

Do you believe it is more successful to publicly or privately bear sins?

Private Sin vs. Public: The Showdown

Everything has its opposite. Every yang has its yin, every shadow has its light, and every evil has its greater good. Duality is an integral part of nature. For anything to truly be what it is, it needs something to exist to make it such. Without night, would day be the kind of day we imagine now? The contrast between something and its opposite is the best way to define anything. Even human nature consists of duality. Everyone sins, but it is our sins that define our best moments. The good we draw from sinning is magnified by the sin itself. But how do we deal with that sin? Do we bear it in silence, or proclaim it from the mountaintops? Sin is best dealt with publicly, as is demonstrated by the characters of both The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible; the characters suffered from concealing their sins and benefited from revealing them to the world.

Like any secret or emotion, if one keeps it bottled up inside, the result will be anything but propitious. Abigail Williams, the lecherous vixen of The Crucible, exemplifies this fact. Abigail sinned by sleeping with a married man, but she does not confess. Instead, she keeps it a secret, and uses it to fuel her actions. She ignores the fact that she has sinned, instead passing it off not as a sin, but as a loving act with truth behind every moment of it. Abigail obsesses over John so much that she tries to accuse his wife of witchcraft, using her sin as her motivation: “It were a fire you walked me through, and all my ignorance was burned away…God gave me the strength to call them liars, and God made men listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! Oh John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again!” (Miller 150). Abigail ignores her sin, and even goes so far as to bask in it, saying that it was strength sent from God. Denial is not just a phonetic version of a river in Egypt, it is exactly what Abigail does throughout the entire novel. She condemns others to their deaths, fueled by sinful passion. She masquerades as the mouthpiece of God, but is driven by sacrilege. Ultimately, her internalized sin is the reason Abigail’s fate is the worst of The Crucible’s main characters.

Because Abigail dismissed her sin, the sin was never resolved. It festered inside her, building and building without release. This is an excellent commentary on Miller’s part. The characters that do not confess their sin end up with horrible fates, but those who reveal their sin to the world for judgment are rewarded with absolution. Abigail’s plans are foiled by the man she so vehemently desired, and because of this, she flees, taking her sin with her. The bottled up sin haunts her, weighing her down like a constant rain cloud hovering over her. No matter what she does to stay dry, she will always end up drenched: “The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston” (146). Abigail could have sought redemption for her sin, but instead, she denied its existence and kept it secret. Because she did not confess her sin, her iniquity followed her and she eventually became a prostitute. Undoubtedly, this fate could have been avoided if she had come clean about her sin. John Proctor, though he shared in the same sin with Abigail, enjoyed a better fate.

John Proctor, the man who committed lechery with Abigail, tried to restrain his sin like Abigail. He too ignored his sin, but did not deny its sinful nature. Proctor knew he sinned, and it plagued him every day. He felt the remorse of his sin, but he also knew he had to keep quiet. It would ruin his name in the town of Salem, and that was the one thing he did not want to lose. For this reason Proctor tells no one about his sin, hoping—though he certainly feels the repercussions—that the magnitude of his sin will someday pass. His wife, Elizabeth, is the only other person besides Abigail that knows of his sin. Proctor not only tries to let his sin pass, but he is angered over the fact that Elizabeth brings it up: ““I wilted, and, like a Christian, I confessed...Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day. But you're not...and let you remember it! Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not” (55). The weight of Proctor’s sin was too much to bear, and so he confessed to his wife. Still, though he confessed, he is not free of his sin. His wife remembers, and as long as she remembers, so does Proctor. If neither had mentioned it, the threat of the sin would slowly diminish over time until it was a distant memory, but because it constantly made its presence known, it forced him to reveal his sin to the public.

In due time, Proctor revealed his sin and was met with salvation. Abigail, in her seige of terror on the town of Salem, condemned many—including Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth—as witches, all to have Proctor to herself. Proctor knew this was the real reason behind her actions, and the thought only added to the weight bearing down on him. He was constrained by his remorse, Abigail’s treachery, and the threat to Elizabeth’s life to reveal his sin to the world: “I have made a bell of my honor! I have rung the doom of my good name” (111). Not only does he confess to lechery, but he besmirches his own name in doing so. The sin and its aftermath grew to be too much, and burst violently out into the open. Still, however, Proctor confessed. This will, ultimately, lead to his redemption, as Elizabeth states: “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!” (145). Because Proctor revealed his hidden secret, he attained redemption. If he did not free himself from the monstrous sin within, he would not have been able to ascend into absolution, but because he did, he was free of the guilt and remorse. Proctor died, but he died for a cause he believed in, content to do so. Though Proctor kept his sin private for so long, the important fact is that he confessed in the end, making his sin public.

Like Proctor, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale of The Scarlet Letter internalized the pain of his sin. Dimmesdale committed adultery with another woman, Hester, and sired a child with her. Dimmesdale, being the man of the cloth that he is, hated himself every moment for indulging in sin. He desired to be free of the sin more than anything, and he wanted the truth to be known. He could not, however, because he was so highly esteemed by the people. If their perfect reverend had sinned, it would cripple their entire faith. When he tries to hint at the wicked iniquity that plagues him, they only venerate him more: “They heard it all, and did but reverence him the more…he had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood. And yet, by the constitution of his nature, he loved the truth, and loathed the lie, as few men ever did. Therefore…he loathed his miserable self!” (Hawthorne 131). If Dimmesdale hated himself before, he utterly detested his very existence after his congregation did not believe him. It is through this perpetual cycle that Dimmesdale’s torment haunts him. He keeps his sin private, and in doing so, only burdens himself further. Dimmesdale even goes so far as to punish himself: “In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Oftentimes, this protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself all the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh” (132). Dimmesdale not only holds everything in, but literally and physically whips himself because of his sin. By internalizing his sin, he is only hurting himself more.

The only way for Dimmesdale to be free of his anguish is to make his sin public, but he is unable to because of the priesthood. This predicament troubles him for seven long years, during which he deteriorates physically and spiritually from both the pain he has inflicted upon himself and the pain of his sin. He is unable to rid himself of his sin until his last dying moments, where he admits the evil he has done to his entire congregation without fear: “With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. It was revealed!...the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory” (228). Dimmesdale won against his sin when he was finally able to confess. He was freed of the burdening chains his sin had constricted about him, and he was able to die at peace with the world. Dimmesdale, in making his sin public, conquered his enemies and was accepted by his daughter, who had, until his confession, shunned him. Everything was right with Dimmesdale, and all because he publicly confessed his sin to the people.

Hester Prynne, one of the protagonists of The Scarlet Letter, exemplifies the advantages of publicly bearing one’s sin. Hester slept with Dimmesdale even though she was already married, sharing in his sin of adultery. She deals with her sin like the rest of the characters, but the difference between Hester and the rest is that they chose to reveal their sin; Hester was forced to confess because she grew pregnant with her child, Pearl. Her secret was thus discovered due to the outward manifestation of her sin: “But the point which drew all eyes, and…transfigured the wearer…was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom. It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself” (50). Hester’s sin was made public from the beginning, and she was forced to wear the scarlet ‘A’ because of it. Both the scarlet letter and her child were symbols of her sin, which, once derived, Hester bore proudly for all to see. She reveled in her sin, and because it was out in the open, she was partly freed from it. If she had somehow been able to keep it secret, she would have to bear it entirely. Because the entire town knows her sin, however, it is not only Hester’s to bear, but everyone else as well. She has gotten over the crucial step of admitting to the sin, and now because of that, she is not alone in dealing with it.

For seven long years, Hester endured the pain of the scarlet letter, but it was not all bad. In the beginning, she was ostracized from society and had to endure the condescending looks of others, but Hester used her pain and put all of her shame to good use: “Hester bestowed all her superfluous means in charity, on wretches less miserable than herself, and who not unfrequently insulted the hand that fed them” (77). Hester used her skill with a sowing needle to embroider for the town, without asking anything more. Having already accepted her role as a devilish sinner, she endeavors to partake in charity as a saint. She uses her public suffering to better herself, and even the people, after years of Hester’s beneficence, began to see her differently: “Individuals in private life…had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin…but of her many good deeds since” (147). Not only did Hester improve as a person, but her sin proved an effective way of bettering her stance in the public eye as well. People thought more of her, because she was able to do so much in spite of sinning so seriously. In the end, after her story had long since finished, she was even buried at King’s Chapel, a prestigious cemetery that anyone would be honored to lay to rest in.

All of the characters of both stories had to cope with their sin of infidelity, and all of them suffered in some way from that sin. The defining characteristic that shines through their tenebrous transgressions, however, is how they dealt with them. They were all adulterers, but what they chose to do with that sin is what defines their end. Abigail ignored her sin, and viciously used it to her advantage; as payment, she spends the rest of her life in prostitution. Proctor tried to let his sin pass, but he was soon left with no other alternative but to divulge his secret publicly; because he did, he was able to die for a noble cause with his name untarnished. Dimmesdale punished himself in private for seven years before he was able to confess his sin to the public, but when he finally did, he was freed from the pressure of it and was able to die at peace with the world. Hester openly bore her sin for all to see, and used its publicity to better herself. Three out of the four characters publicly confessed their sins, and those same three are the ones with honorable and happy endings. As both The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter demonstrate, publicly bearing your sins is better than locking them away inside. Publicity is the first step towards freeing yourself from the sin. Privacy only allows the sin to consume you until all that is left is the desire you had confessed sooner.

Works Cited

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. United States of America: Penguin Books, 1976

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam Dell, 1986