Dimmesdale and Guilt The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the most well known novels of the romantic writing era. It is a fascinating story about human frailty and its attempt to redeem itself. Set in Boston, the story involves a woman, Hester Prynne, who has a child by another man after Indians abduct her husband. She is made to stand on a scaffold with the entire town watching while she wears an “…showed first 75 words of 1256 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1256 total…later kill him is a scary thought. Luckily, Hawthorne decided not to end the story with Dimmesdale’s death and included a conclusion so that the reader can be let down easier. At the end of the novel, the reader can see that Dimmesdale attempts to atone for his sin by making his own kind of confessions, but because these confessions are not like Hester’s, his guilt remains a debilitating factor in his life.