Chapters 9-12 The townspeople's blindness

Through the chapters of 9-12, the novel explores Dimmesdale and Chillingworth’s relationship. We see both men grow wary and suspicious of each other to an extent, while still maintaining a semblance of friendship. However, it could be said that the personalities of the two men take a turn for the worse during the time they spend together. Chillingworth changes from a doctor with appropriate professionalism to someone who becomes suspicious of the person he is trying to heal and even goes so far as to invade Dimmesdale’s personal privacy while he is sleeping by looking under his shirt. On the other hand, Dimmesdale becomes a shell of his former self, and there is clearly something eating away at him and severely bothering him.

Despite both men becoming worse personality-wise, the townspeople really only view Chillingworth in a negative way, showing that they only see what they want to see. The townspeople are capable of twisting what they view around them to make it appear the way they want it to be. This is demonstrated in the way they view Chillingworth on page 116.

“Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him. According to the vulgar idea, the fire in his laboratory had been brought from the lower regions, and was fed with infernal fuel; and so, as might be expected, his visage was getting sooty with the smoke (Hawthorne 116).”

Chillingworth has behaved poorly towards Dimmesdale, potentially as an act of jealous or rage, but has not done anything negative to the public; they still judge him because of his appearance. They don’t have anything substantial to fully conclude that the doctor is evil, that he is the embodiment of Satan, or from hell, yet they assess him in a negative way anyways.

However, Dimmesdale, who actually has committed a sin, adultery, is given the gift of doubt and defended by the townspeople, because they don’t regard him with the distrust that they view Chillingworth with. Also, just because of his position in the Church, they are blinded to his flaws. He is physically ill and unable to function properly in many ways with his hallucinations, but the townspeople are unable to discern that Dimmesdale internally hiding a bothersome issue is what is causing his illness. Instead, as shown by the following quote, his issues are blamed on Chillingworth.

“To sum up the matter, it grew to be a widely diffused opinion, that the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, like many other personages of especial sanctity, in all ages of the Christian world, was haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan’s emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth (Hawthorne116).”

The blinded townspeople only see what they want to see; consequently, they judge Chillingworth wrongly. Ironically, it isn’t even Chillingworth who has committed a large sin, but instead it is Dimmesdale, one of the people the townspeople view highly, and they see him as being able to do no wrong.

I had mixed emotions while reading these chapters, as I felt sarcastically amused towards the townspeople’s ignorance and quick judgment towards people. All of them are willing to quickly pass judgment on others, which could be viewed as the deadly sin of pride, as they believe themselves to be better than the people they are judging, which is what allows them to pass the negative judgment in the first place. Additionally, towards the end of chapter 12, when a meteor in the shape of the letter A is spotted falling, the townspeople fail to view it in any way other than standing for the word “angel” in regards to the death of Governor Winthrop.

I understood the conflict between the two men, but I felt that most of the situations that have happened so far in the book, such as Hester being looked down on because she refused to give her partner’s identity, and Dimmesdale feeling the need to harm himself, could have been avoided had Dimmesdale confessed to being Hester’s accomplice from the beginning.

I see a strong connection between some people in our society and Dimmesdale, which creates my gossamer thread. It is known that in our society, there are some people who self harm for various reasons such as being depressed or unable to cope with a certain situation. This reminded me of Dimmesdale because it seemed like was doing something similar to self harm in the way he tortures himself physically, whips himself, fasts, and holds extended vigils. Like those who harm themselves because they cannot rid themselves of a worrying fear or negative feelings, Dimmesdale is unable to talk about or expel his sense of guilt and sin for assisting in adultery, and turns to self-harm. The motives behind people who self-harm in modern day society and Dimmesdale may be slightly different, but there are still parallels to be drawn.

I believe the picture of the angel below illustrates Dimmesdale because he is viewed as this angel or pure being, but he’s not as pure as almost everyone thinks. He is brought to his knees by a sense of guilt and sin. The second picture reminded me of the way Dimmesdale refuses to tell anyone around him what is bothering him, and of the way he tries to hide everything away.