Dimmesdale's Revelation of His Sin

Dimmesdale's Revelation of His Sin is the climactic scene of The Scarlet Letter, in which the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, after delivering the Election Sermon, ascends the scaffold, reveals a scarlet letter imprinted on his own breast, confesses his guilt, and dies in Hester Prynne's arms, finally achieving truth and liberation.

The Scaffold and the Crowd

After the Election Sermon, a discourse that had held the audience spellbound and was regarded as the most powerful and inspired of his career, Dimmesdale walked in the procession from the meeting-house. He appeared feeble and pale, his energy spent, and he tottered as he moved. The crowd, still under the spell of his eloquence, watched with awe and wonder. As the procession passed the scaffold where Hester Prynne had once stood in public ignominy, Dimmesdale paused. He turned towards the scaffold and stretched forth his arms, calling out, "Hester, come hither! Come, my little Pearl!" The child flew to him and clasped her arms about his knees. Hester Prynne, slowly and as if impelled by inevitable fate, drew near. At this moment, Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd, rushing forward to catch the minister by the arm, whispering, "Madman, hold! what is your purpose?" He urged Dimmesdale to wave back the woman and cast off the child, promising to save him. But Dimmesdale, encountering his eye fearfully but firmly, answered, "Ha, tempter! Methinks thou art too late! Thy power is not what it was! With God's help, I shall escape thee now!"

The Confession

Supported by Hester Prynne and holding little Pearl's hand, Dimmesdale ascended the scaffold. He turned to the rulers, the ministers, and the people, and cried out, "People of New England! ye, that have loved me!--ye, that have deemed me holy!--behold me here, the one sinner of the world!" He declared that he stood on the spot where, seven years since, he should have stood with Hester. He spoke of the scarlet letter that Hester wore, saying that it had cast a lurid gleam of awe and horror about her, but that there stood one in the midst of them at whose brand of sin and infamy they had not shuddered. With a convulsive motion, he tore away the ministerial band from before his breast. The revelation was made: a scarlet letter, the very semblance of that worn by Hester Prynne, was imprinted in his flesh. The multitude gazed in horror at the ghastly miracle. Dimmesdale stood with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory. Then he sank down upon the scaffold. Hester partly raised him and supported his head against her bosom. Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him with a blank, dull countenance, repeating, "Thou hast escaped me!" Dimmesdale replied, "May God forgive thee! Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!"

The Final Moments

Dimmesdale turned his dying eyes to Hester and Pearl. He asked Pearl for a kiss, saying, "dear little Pearl, wilt thou kiss me now? Thou wouldst not, yonder, in the forest! But now thou wilt?" Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief had developed all her sympathies, and her tears fell upon her father's cheek, pledging that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow. Hester asked if they would meet again, but Dimmesdale, with tremulous solemnity, told her to think only of the law they broke and the sin revealed. He said that God had proved his mercy in his afflictions, by giving him the burning torture to bear upon his breast, by sending the dark and terrible old man to keep the torture always at red-heat, and by bringing him to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people. With his final word, "Farewell!" he expired.

Aftermath and Interpretations

After many days, there was more than one account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold. Most spectators testified to having seen a scarlet letter imprinted in the flesh on the minister's breast. Some affirmed that Dimmesdale had begun a course of penance on the very day Hester first wore her badge, inflicting a hideous torture on himself. Others contended that the stigma had been produced later through the agency of Roger Chillingworth's magic and poisonous drugs. Others whispered their belief that the awful symbol was the effect of the ever-active tooth of remorse, gnawing from the inmost heart outwardly. However, certain persons who professed never once to have removed their eyes from Dimmesdale denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, and claimed that his dying words did not acknowledge any connection with Hester's guilt. The authority which the narrative chiefly followed, a manuscript drawn up from verbal testimony, fully confirms the view that Dimmesdale revealed his sin. The moral pressed upon the reader is: "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!"