Dimmesdale As Tragic Hero
Dimmesdale As Tragic Hero
Dimmesdale As Tragic Hero
himself inspired; and only wondered that Heaven should see fit to transmit
the grand and solemn music of its oracles through so foul an organ-pipe as
he. The man who had long looked down from his pulpit and seen his flock
hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost
were speaking has found his tongue at last. Feeling himself that heavenordained apostle his parishioners long imagined him to be, he is enabled to
pen a vision of the high and glorious destiny for the newly gathered people
of the Lord.
Hester's remark on the Election Day that follows, a new man is beginning to
rule over them, has a significance she did not intend and cannot
comprehend: at this moment Dimmesdale is just such a man, even though
his rule will last only for the time it takes him to deliver his sermon and make
his revelation. As he proceeds to the meetinghouse, no longer will-less but
surcharged with spiritual energy, she senses that she has lost the magnetic
power she exercised over him in the forest. Here in the marketplace it is she
who is weak and he who is strong, for in the final stage of the journey he has
found his way out of the maze in which she still wanders. Pearl, who had
washed off his kiss at the brook, wishes to run to him, and bid him kiss me
now, before all the people.... Knowing at last what it means to be a special
instrument of God, Dimmesdale gives tongue to his prophecy; never had
man spoken in so wise, so high, and so holy a spirit, as he that spake this
day.... Then, mounting the scaffold, supported by Hester and holding Pearl's
hand and followed by Chillingworth, he confesses his sin and, stepping forth
unassisted, reveals the stigma on his breast. Whereupon Pearl, having heard
her father acknowledge her existence, kisses him willingly in his dying hour.
Arthur Dimmesdale is a tragic hero. Tragedy as I here conceive it arises from
the tension between illusion and realityillusion meaning the there and
then, reality the here and now; illusion meaning the ideal and reality the
actual conception one has of himself. The quality of the illusion matters
greatly, the noblest being man's aspiration to free himself from his particular
time and place; the aspiration, in Christian terms, to return to that state of
bliss in which he existed before the Fall. But here a dilemma arises: all men
require illusion to bring order out of the chaos of the present, but if a man
persists in hiding behind his illusion he is incapacitated for meaningful
action. Ethically meaningful, that is to say tragic, action is possible only when
a man, guided by this noblest of illusions, steps out from behind it and,
fronting the terrors of the here and now, acts in obedience to a secret
impulse of his character. Whereas Dimmesdale's full revelation on the
scaffold is tragic, Hester's dynamic but lawless behavior in the forest is at
best heroically pathetic. Hester is incapable of acting in a way that is
ethically meaningful. Like Dimmesdale she dreams of regaining paradise, but
unlike him she finds she must forever hide behind this dream if she is to go
on living. In suggesting that they three, Dimmesdale, Pearl, and she herself,
exchange the New World for the Old, she seeks to fulfill a temporalized
version of the Edenic illusion, Boston signifying the here and now, Europe the
there and then. However noble this illusion, it provides no basis for ethically
meaningful action, since she is incapable of stepping from behind it and
facing the present circumstance. When Pearl demands that she fasten the
letter on her bosom again and Hester, having experienced temporary
freedom, does so, it is with a heavy heart. Hopefully, but a moment ago, as
Hester had spoken of drowning it in the deep sea, there was a sense of
inevitable doom upon her, as she thus received back this deadly symbol from
the hand of fate. She had flung it into infinite space!she had drawn an
hour's free breath!and here again was the scarlet misery, glittering on the
old spot! Her advising them to flee Boston was irresponsible because she
did not gauge the actual situation accurately and, being irresponsible, it was
not ethically meaningful. Nowhere in the narrative does her transcendental
morality lead to tragic action. Strong she may seem: tragic she is not.
Conversely, Dimmesdale's confession is the act of a man who is tragically
great. Of course, he shares in Hester's hour of transcendental freedom. Once
resolved to leave Boston with Hester and their child, he is overcome by a
new sensation. It was the exhilarating effectupon a prisoner just escaped
from the dungeon of his own heartof breathing the wild, free atmosphere
of an unredeemed, unchristianized, lawless region. What saves him in the
end from the self-deception that incapacitates Hester is the fact that his
version of the Edenic illusion is grounded in the infinite, not in the finite
world; the fact that, except for the short time he is required to wander in a
maze, he knows himself to be a sinner and never mistakes penance done on
earth for penitence. Like all men tragically great he sees with unflinching
honesty the distance separating his ideal from his actual self and, seeing
this, tries to bridge the gap. Before his hour of freedom he tells Hester, I
have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between
what I seem and what I am! Like Young Goodman Brown, he gains insight in
this critical hour. Another man, writes Hawthorne, had returned out of the
forest; a wiser one; with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the
simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge
that! Unlike Brown because now secure in his faith, he translates insight
into meaningful action, prophesying a glorious destiny for Massachusetts and
publicly repenting him of his sin. Whereas Hester believes that what they did
had a consecration of its own and seeks assurance that they will be united in
paradise, he must tell her in his dying breath: The law we broke!the sin
here so awfully revealed!let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It
may be, that, when we forgot our God,when we violated our reverence
each for the other's soul,it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could
meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is
merciful! Dimmesdale goes to his early grave humbled and penitent, but
when Hester follows him to hers many years later she is apparently
unrepentant still. Hawthorne tells us that although one tombstone served
for both, there was a space between, as if the dust of the two sleepers had
no right to mingle.
Source Citation
Granger, Bruce Ingham. "Arthur Dimmesdale as Tragic Hero." NineteenthCentury Fiction 19.2 (Sept. 1964): 197-203. Rpt. in Novels for Students. Ed.
Diane Telgen. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resources from Gale.
Web. 15 Nov. 2010.
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