charlesbbaker
The Scarlet Reader
This post focuses the relationship of the history of the Puritan Church and Dimmesdale.
Dimmesdale’s Decent: the story of the American Puritan Church.
In chapters 9-12, Arthur Dimmesdale began a deep slide into the depths of madness. Triggered by Chillingworth’s revenge attempts, Dimmesdale enters a positive feedback loop of negative reinforcement. Essentially he is growing more and more unsure of his surroundings and his sanity. Every realization he has drives him to a new one and furthers him from reality. I found this interesting, as I believe that Hawthorn is showing the downfall of the Puritan church to the Salem events up onto this point. Hawthorn was very against the rigid, religious society and this is directly shown by the fall of the leader of the church.
Dimmesdale first is harmed by the guilt impregnating Hester, as they were not married. This guilt has caused him to begin ailing in health. When the “good” doctor Chillingworth shows up (notably with a native American), he sets up his aforementioned revenge by pretending to treat Dimmesdale. He actually causes further harm by pushing on his guilt. It is this that causes Dimmesdale to step into his positive feedback loop. Dimmesdale even feels as though Chillingworth is harming him, saying:
[Note, I added underlines to break up the text as this book is very dense and I felt it would make the excerpt easier to understand]
“Mr. Dimmesdale, conscious that the poison of one morbid spot was infecting his heart’s entire substance, attributed all his presentiments to no other cause (his illness). He took himself to task for his bad sympathies in reference to Roger Chillingworth(for feeling that it was his fault).” (Hawthorn 128 )
Dimmesdale now begins to practice metacognition and self reflect on his flaws. Without a release to this, he draws further and further into insanity to the point where he sees hallucinations and can no longer understand reality. This even goes to the point of self harm, when
“inward trouble drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge (whip). Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders, laughing bitterly at himself the while, and smiting so much the more pitilessly because of that bitter laugh.” (131)
Essentially this is saying he is whipping himself, punishing himself for his own sin.
The second important part of the comparison is found in the way Roger Chillingworth represents the outside, Native American influence on the community. He arrives in town with a Native American and proceeds to carry out some of their medical practices.
In this analogy, Dimmesdale represents the Puritan church in America and Chillingworth represents Native Americans. The Puritan churches grew to help people originally, and were well established in America, but with the native influence, they began to grow fearful and lose their way. It wasn’t just American Indian attacks on towns, but also the treat of people assimilating the native culture. This would be bad for the Puritan church because the church saw itself as pure and any tampering to this would have harmed their appearance in the eyes of God. This fear of both native attacks cultural blending becomes a problem to the point when the church looses its sanity and begins the which hunts. That is how it happened historically, but I believe that Hawthorn is foreshadowing the next stage of the church chronologically.
At the end of the chapter, a meteorite is seen to show the letter A, and many interoperate this as an angel. Angels are prominent biblical figures that act as identifier for change. From the conception of the Messiah and his reincarnation to the conception of John the Baptist and when Moran appeared to Joseph Smith, angels represent a time of change. By presenting the angel, he shows that a change will come in this turmoil and may save the town. The angel will also bring great change to the society.
I am very eager to see if this change is going to be social or religious (if it happens); and, if religious, would it be a reference to the development of the Baptist church seen in the First Great Awakening that occurred in this time.
Works cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam Dell, 1850. Print.
The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments. Trenton: I. Collins, 1791. Print.
The Scarlet Reader 
I did not think of Dimmesdale representing the Puritan church; however, I do think it is interesting to note the fall to insanity in both cases. In the same way that Dimmesdale began to torture himself to reach purification, the Puritan church began to torture its people with the witch trials to purify the community.
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