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Forgiveness in The Scarlet Letter

 

"Time heals all wounds." is a famous line in American history. I don't think that this is true. My line would be, "Forgiveness heals all wounds." I think that Forgiveness in a very important part of life. Without it, people can not move on with their lives. Let's take for instance a murderer and the family of the person he killed. The murderer may be sentenced to death. The family of the person who was killed could go in and watch the man that killed their family member be put to death. That may give them peace of mind, but they still can not completely move on. They must forgive murderer for killing the person before they can really move on with their lives. Once they do this it will be easier for them. A book that really illustrated this is The Scarlet Letter. In this book there are three main characters, Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester Prynne, and Roger Chillingworth. These three people either needed forgiveness or needed to forgive someone. Some got it, some didn't. Whether or not they received or gave forgiveness had a great impact in their lives.

 

Arthur Dimmesdale was a Reverend. He was supposed to be a great, God fearing person. He was supposed to never break a rule and be the kind of person everyone wanted to be. The only problem was that Dimmesdale had sinned, and it had been a horrible sin. He had slept with a married woman, and she ended up pregnant. This married woman was Hester Prynne. He needed forgiveness from everyone else before he could forgive himself. Dimmesdale couldn't tell anyone what he had done because he could have been put to death for it. He was too afraid of everyone else's reaction to tell them what he person had done. Therefore he could not receive forgiveness. This sin ate away at Dimmesdale till he couldn't live anymore. All this happened because he couldn't receive forgiveness from the people of his community and himself.

 

Hester Prynne had been sent to Boston with reports of her husband to follow. After about a year she got kind of lonely. She wasn't sure is he even was going to come to her. Also, she also fell in love. She was in love with the local minister. She was not in love with her husband nor ever really was in love with him. Hester and the minister, Dimmesdale, ended up sleeping together and created a child. She decided to keep the identity of the child's father a secret. She would tell no one who the father was. Hester was made to wear the scarlet letter "A" for adultery. She had to wear it on the outside of her clothes for the rest of her life.

 

Soon after Hester was let out of prison she started to perform many charitable acts. She made her living as a seamstress and all the money that she didn't spend on her daughter she gave to the poor. She made the less fortunate clothes and gave them food. They usually spit at her and cursed her, but deep down they knew they needed the things so she kept on doing it. People in the town began to forgive her for what she had done. They began to say her "A" stood for able instead of adultery. They talked about her to other towns and bragged that she was their Hester and no other place had one like her. Hester began to live an easier life, besides having to deal with Chillingworth. She was liked by the town people and accepted. All this came about because Hester had received forgiveness from the people around her.

 

Chillingworth was a cruel man. He had come to be with his wife and found her on the scaffold in the center of the town holding a child that was not his. He was so angered by this that he vowed to himself and Hester that he would seek out the identity of the father and get his revenge. Dimmesdale soon became sick and needed the physician quite a bit. Chillingworth was the physician. It was determined that Chillingworth would move in with Dimmesdale so he could give him around the clock attention. Chillingworth had suspicions that Dimmesdale was the father of little Pearl so he was more than glad to move in with him. Soon afterward Chillingworth's suspicions were confirmed. Dimmesdale was Hester's partner in crime, and Chillingworth was determined to get his revenge on him. Chillingworth gave Dimmesdale medicine that would not help him in any way and played mind games with him. This anger Chillingworth had for Dimmesdale slowly ate away at him. He became a dark, scary, ugly, angry old man. The only thing he lived for was to torture Dimmesdale. All this because Chillingworth could not forgive Dimmesdale for what he had done with Hester.

 

Now you can see why I think that forgiveness is a very important thing for humans to receive and give. Two of these three people had their lives ruined because they had no forgiveness. When Hester got the forgiveness she needed she started to be accepted back into the community, but things weren't so good for Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. Time will not heal their wound, only forgiveness.