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The Scarlet Letter Sin Quotes Page 1
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
| Quote #1 "If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer!" (3.26) |
Here, Dimmesdale argues that to sin is to suffer. What is revealed here is that sin is often invisible, that sinners can easily disguise themselves unless their sins mark their bodies, as with Hester’s pregnancy. Punishment and absolution of sin has a lot to do with outward appearances and hearsay.
| Quote #2 " With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams, and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse, and despair of pardon; as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow of my presence!—the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged!--and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! Yea, indeed!—he did not err!—there was a fiend at his elbow! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!" (14.18) |
Why do you think Chillingworth is so intent on making Dimmesdale’s life miserable? Instead of exposing his sin to the townspeople, Chillingworth prefers to manipulate the Reverend’s heart and mind, and to explore Dimmesdale’s relationship to sin.
| Quote #3 Thus the young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin. (5.1) |
What does the narrator mean when he says Hester is "the figure, the body, the reality of sin?" If Hester represents sin in this society, then how do we interpret the fact that she becomes a legend and a revered woman in her old age? Does the concept of sin change over the course of the novel?
