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☆Choose a morally ambiguous character that plays a pivotal role in The Sacrlet Letter. Then write an essay in which you explain how the charcter can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole.☆</topic></p>
<pre><code> Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel “The Scarlet Letter” explores the phenomena of love, crime, and revenge set in colonial New England. It revolves around a forbidden act of passion that alters around a forever the lives of some people in small puritan community; Hester Prynne, an adulteress forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” at all times; the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, a well-respected minister of the community; and Hester’s husband and daughter, Roger Chillingworth and Pearl. These several morally ambiguous characters played different pivotal roles, in fact, most characters presented can be evaluated as embodying both “good” and “evil” qualities. Dimmesdale is an especially ambiguous character. His moral and social prestige and contrasting roles as a reverend minister and adulterer granted a chance to him to play a crucial role throughout the story. Dimmesdale’s moral ambiguity comes from his lack of courage to be the “right person” and to do the “right thing”.
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<p>Dimmesdale is the character most devastated by his role in the crime, which is, of course, that of co-adulterer. He was afraid of revealing his sin to public, and it shows his lack of courage. He let Hester be judged solely by her effect on the two men implicated in the adulterous triangle, and be shamed and alienated from the rest of the community, while Dimmesdale, himself, was becoming more popular and admired by hiding the truth. He even accused Hester publicly with Governor Bellingham and Reverend Wilson, whereas he never confessed his sin until the very end. </p>
<p>Yet, he is not easily discarded as a “bad person”, and this is what makes him morally ambiguous. We, the readers, can not categorically dismiss him. Instead, we feel sympathy for him. Even though he did not confess, he punished himself. He felt so guilty that he let Hester take insults lying down alone, and began to torture himself physically; he scourges himself a whip, he fasts, and he holds extended vigils, during which he stays awoke throughout the night meditation upon his sin. During one of these vigils, Dimmesdale decides to hold a vigil on the scaffold where, years before, Hester suffered for her sin. Although the Bible offers him little support, he is unable to unburden himself of the guilt deriving from his sin, and begin to believe that “the whole universe is false-it is impalpable-it shrinks to nothing within his grasp”. </p>
<p>Not only he punishes himself internally and externally, he takes responsibility for what had happened even though he does not have to; people do not know of his sin, and he could continue normal living, but, he, in his own way, acts nobly. For instance, he still loved Hester and cares her and her daughter Pearl, and he shares Hester’s judgment by carrying the letter “A” in his skin, though he did not expose it to others. Also, he denied marrying other young women who were devoted to him. Dimmesdales’s pain remains locked inside his body, and suffered from guilt, which is the product of an internalized self-disapproval and thus is much more toxic. </p>
<p>Being true to his name, which suggests weakness, indeterminacy, lack of insight, and lack of will, Dimmesdales is slow to do the right thing. Nevertheless, he did do the right thing in the end by confessing his sin after he finished his Election Sermon. </p>
<p>Dimmesdale is a tragic figure and tragedy of this proportion and magnitude incite sympathy in readers. Its tragedy lies in the manner in which he responds to his situation. His complex personality leads him to react and atone in myriad of ways. And because of this, we, the readers can not easily dismiss him as being one or the other. We may judge his action and the way of his exorcism to be bad, but when we see his internal struggles, we can not help but understand and sympathize with him. The moral ambiguity in “The Scarlet Letter”, force readers to reevaluate their own beliefs as it play with the readers’ sympathies. Thus, in the tradition of Greek tragedy, he is a tragic, complicated and morally ambiguous figure who, at times, wins readers’ sympathy and at other times, their disgust. </p>
<p>Please feel free to critique, correct the grammer, commet!!!
Please be a faultfinder on this essay!!!
Thanks!</p>
Although you might want to strengthen your conclusion a little bit more. BTW, your intro is really good.</p>