One Sinner's Sympathy for Another

The Scarlet Letter By: Nathaniel Hawthorne (pg. 125-136)

It has now been seven years since Hester was convicted and much has changed. Hester is no longer an outcast amongst the community and some are convinced the scarlet letter represents able rather than adulteress. Hester has been serving her community for the last seven years embroidering and making beautiful garments. She also has been giving back to the poor and help those less fortunate than her. Through time with Hester's sin never personally affecting any person the town is easier to forgive her. Some townspeople even speak that she should have the punishment lifted and the letter removed. Hester still feels she can learn from the letter as she has learned to be humble and sympathise with those around her. Dimmesdale has suffered the opposite fate with his sin. The secret is still kept and none know Dimmesdale for his sin except for Hester and her suspecting former husband. Though Dimmesdale has not told Chillingworth or his transgression he is sure that the clergyman is in fact guilty. Despite knowing is his heart of the clergyman's sin the doctor still tortures Dimmesdale and makes his guilt hurt him everyday. For these past seven years Chillingworth has been helping Dimmesdales physical health and hurting his emotional and spiritual health. Hester begins to feel that she made a mistake hiding Dimmesdale as the other sinner, where her pain has numbed his is new every day. Knowing this she feels she must go to see Roger Chillingworth. When she goes to speak with him she sees how much he has changed and how a once quiet and reserved man is now aggressive and secretive. She tells him she must break their promise and reveal who Roger really is to Dimmesdale and she asks him to forgive and move on.

The sympathy Hester has for Dimmesdale is profound. She has been publically humiliated and yet she wants to help him with his pain and stop his torture. She is showing that the wounds of her crime are ever present but she has learned how to live with her guilt and she wants the others that were involved and effected to learn to forgive themselves and each other and try to learn from the crime rather than to continue to live in the dark. I really admire how Hester has risen above all of the pain to help others.