Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter: Arthur Dimmesdale's Manipulation of Language

Many of Hawthorne's tales suggest that gifted people find it difficult to avoid isolation. Arthur Dimmesdale's case is unique in Hawthorne's fiction because his preacher's talent for eloquence requires an audience and should therefore serve to connect him to others rather than distance him from them. Yet the powerful guilt he feels as a result of his adultery with Hester awakens an internal conflict so great that it enslaves language to the various dimensions of that conflict. Increasingly conscious of previously hidden impulses that are incompatible with his Puritan beliefs and the ideal self he wishes to become, Dimmesdale is led to use language, both in his sermons and elsewhere, in two ways. Because his self-esteem depends so much on living up to a nearly angelic ego-ideal, his sermons attempt to recover that self-esteem destroyed by the adultery. Somewhat paradoxically, language also allows him to release impulses from what Chillingworth calls the minister's “strong animal nature,”1 which is incompatible with his ideal self.

The conflict between his ideal and libidinal selves determines all of Dimmesdale's behavior. Language, rather than helping him to master this conflict, is mastered by it. Dimmesdale's inability to confess lies at the center of this conflict. To confess would be to admit the power of his sexuality and would mean abandoning forever an ideal self impossible for him to achieve, committing him to attempt a redefinition of his identity. Fearing such commitment, Dimmesdale