Essay Database

Dimmesdale’s Humble Mortality--Life is hard, but accepting that fact makes it easier. In this twisted story of deception and adultery set in the Puritan era, Hawthorne introduces Dimmesdale as a weak and cowardly man who refuses to take responsibility for his actions. By the end of the novel he has been transformed into a person who accepts his sins and the consequences, before it is too late; ultimately proving that love surpasses all boundaries, …

…the lives of Hester and Dimmesdale. Truth was obviously the hardest route for him to take. Once he had accepted that the truth could save him, he realized that the hard path although inconvenient, was also the express lane to freedom. Hawthorne's major theme in the book was that people are only human and nothing else, and a character other than Dimmesdale could not have painted such a vivid, and memorable picture in one's mind.