Miranda: English II, Section F

Now I have one eye and I am sad that I ever took for granted having two. Now I am lucky to have one…to see the beauties of the world with one eye, when some have none. Some can only be told about a red–orange sunset, and a huge waterfall cascading down, down. So beautiful, they cannot see it. But they can hear it like no one else can, the loud rush of water against the smooth rocks at the bottom, rounded by the cool water. Yes, they can hear like we cannot, like we will never be able to. Oh, but we can see. We can see a starry night, we can see a calm lake, we can see the trees swish back and forth in the wind. We can feel, but they can feel better. They can feel the cool breeze on their face and know if the wind is happy. They can feel the smoothness of a rock, the cool water on their hot, sweaty, hands. They can feel everything, so much that we cannot feel. But they cannot feel something that they do not see. A warm blanket up on the tippy top of a shelf, they cannot see it, so they cannot feel it when they are shivering with cold. But I can help them because I have one eye and I can see that they are shivering and I can see where the blanket is on the tippy top of the shelf. I can see the tears streaming down his face, they cannot see them, maybe he hides them from them, but he cannot hide them from me because I have one eye and I can see those tears. I can see art, I can see soccer, I can see happiness, I can see sadness and sorrow, and forgiveness, even though I cry every night, I can see forgiveness. We can feel happiness together, everyone can feel happiness. Sometimes you don’t even know why you feel it, but everyone can feel happiness. And you can hear. Oh you can hear the loons cooing in on a calm canoe ride, and Chippy the chipmunk bright and early in the morning, and Uncle Michael saying: “Co-ed Swim!”. You don’t need eyes to hear that. And you can smell, oh the smells. The smell of the pine forest, and fresh baked bluberry pie, and the breeze on the lake, so relaxing, you can smell it. The smell of the trails, and the dirt skidding under your feet, but you don’t fall, because I’ll catch you. I’ll always be there to catch you. And I’ll be your eyes too, if you want.

I don’t know what this is, it is just Creative Writing, here goes:

Why is the sky blue? Because that is the way our eyes choose to see it? Why do they choose so? Because blue is a happy color and the sky is happy. Why is the sky happy? Because it can look down on all of the people. Why can it look down on all of the people? Because it is way up high. But why does that make it happy? Because it likes to watch the people when they don’t know it is watching. What about at night, what are the stars for? They are bright little lights that sparkle down on us to make us happy. Why do they make us happy? Because they are so beautiful and they get to watch us when we do not know. Why are they beautiful? Because they sparkle in the night, when all else is dark, and sometimes you can see a shooting star and wish on it if you like. Why do you wish on it? Because it is a lucky star, so for a lucky person the wish will come true. Why is it lucky? Because shooting stars are so rare. What’s rare? It means that there aren’t a lot of them. Oh… I wish I could see a shooting star… Me too.

Why is grass green? Because that is the way our eyes choose to see it. Why do they choose so? Because green is a refreshing color and the grass is a refreshing thing? Why is it a refreshing thing? Because it is part of nature, and it is moist, and you can have picnics on it? Am I a part of nature? Yes. Well, why do you have picnics on it? You mean the grass? Yes. Well, you have picnics to relax and to eat your lunch outside? Why do you want to eat your lunch outside? Because then you are out in nature, not stuck inside? But what if it is hot–and what about bugs? Then you sit in the shade, and the bugs won’t disturb your picnic. Why not? Because they know you are having fun. Why are you having fun? Because picnics are fun. Oh…I wish I could go on a picnic…Me too.

Maybe one day we can go on a picnic at night and try to see a shooting star. No, that will be scary. Not if we do it in our backyard. Yeah! Let’s do it right now? No, I’m too tired. Okay, tomorrow night. Okay. Good night…..Good night.

Question: Who do you think the characters are?

I think they are an older sister and a younger sister, like me and my sister. That’s what I think. What do you think?

P.S. Blog # 21 and 22 were both posted today, Sunday, but they should have been posted on Saturday. I am sorry. I know this is becoming a habit, I am really going to try to change it.

“Home, Sweet Home”
Winslow Homer
1863

Blog Response to Winslow Homer Paintings

Question: How do you understand this painting? And another question, asked by me, what does it make you think about when you look at this painting and what to you think this painting is trying to express?

Home, Sweet Home, 1863

I understand this painting as setting a scene based on experiences of civil war soldiers. It seems to me that the soldiers have just returned from a battle, which can be inferred from the group of dead or wounded soldiers in the background of the painting. It seems that the title is slightly ironic, in that the setting of the painting is a makeshift village, in which most of the tents are blankets thrown over whatever can be found. In the foreground, two soldiers wear gloomy expressions that seem to express utter despair. It seems that they have nothing…their gloomy surroundings display that they lack proper shelter and they are trying to heat something on the fire. It seems as though there are some waffles in the painting, but they are very small and seem almost forgotten when compared with the rest of the painting. I think this painting expresses the hardships and harsh lifestyles of being a soldier, and I think that the title really expresses the desperate situation that they are in at this point. It seems that they have nothing, their wounded or dead friends are lying down in the background, and yet, it is probably a relief for them to have a place where they can call home and at least feel a small sense of security and safety. I think that this idea relates to the common feeling of war, which I remember from the portion of “The Things We Carried” that we read last year in our English class, it is one of the scariest things I have ever thought about, the feeling that you have nowhere to feel safe. During the Civil War, World War I and II, soldiers probably felt this. It is a simple idea, and yet it is so frightening. This idea that you literally have nowhere to turn, and nowhere to go where you are safe, wherever you go you are in constant danger, is very frightening to me. I think that is a very scary idea. I think this partially explains why people who come back from wars are completely traumatized, or even dysfunctional from their experiences.

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, Mary Cassatt, 1878

This painting makes me feel so relaxed; it kind of makes me want to go into the picture and fall asleep on one of the blue armchairs.

Question: Why??

Answer: The cool colors and the dim lighting in the room makes it seem like a room that has the shades down, so that some light still peeps through, but not a lot. The room is very simple and there are several blue armchairs, which makes the viewer relaxed because the room is calm and simple, and there is not a lot of variety in it. The girl’s pale, creamy skin, and her calm, dreamy expression, also serve to calm the viewer. The sleeping dog, paired with the little girl who seems like she is about to fall asleep adds a relaxing tone to the painting, because they must be in a calm environment in order to be asleep or falling asleep. This picture is very realistic in its style, and similarly to “ The Child’s Bath” the dog and the girl stand out from the rest of the painting because of their contrast in coloring and the fact that they are more detailed than the dim background. This painting is also more realistic in another sense, the fact that it almost seems to be a candid photograph. If this painting were a portrait, the girl and the dog would have been expected to be either sitting or standing upright, and staring directly at the painter. In this painting however, they are very relaxed in that the dog is laying down and the girl’s posture is slumped as if she was about to fall asleep. The dreamy look in the girl’s eyes is very important to the relaxation and calmness of the painting, because it displays, beyond her posture, how relaxed she is. This painting, and the realism that it displays would have been a very revolutionary painting for its time, as were many other of Mary Cassatt’s paintings because it displays an unbelievable realism in the gestures and positions of the girl and the dog, and the calmness and dimness in the room provides a sense of relaxation for the viewer.

One more thing, the fact that the little girl seems to be dressed very formally, as if she had just gotten home from a formal event, makes me even more relaxed, because I can relate to the feeling when you have just come home from a very long, formal event, and you just want to lie down and fall asleep. The realism seen in the exhaustion of the little girl is very relatable and it makes me think that she is so cute and relaxed with her pale cheeks and her thoughtful, dreamy expression.

This version of the painting, found on another site, is so bright in color that it makes me feel almost sick in comparison to the relaxation portrayed in the other painting. I think that this is an excellent example of the way that color hues in a painting can really affect the viewer and the overall feeling of the painting. I also feel that the harsh detail in the different colors of the chair that the girl is sitting in adds to the feeling of sickness that I get when I look at this picture. The other picture (the first one) seems to have a sheet of dimness and calm thrown over it. In the second, however, the different colors seem to harsh and the environment seems very disturbing to me, in contrast with the utter relaxation that I felt when looking at the first version of the painting. I don’t know why I feel so strongly about this, and I don’t even know which version of the painting is more like Mary Cassatt’s original painting, but, when I compare the first to the second, I feel such a difference in the feelings that the painting give off, when I compare them to each other. It would be interesting to see what other people think about this, because I feel so strongly that these different versions of the same painting are so different from each other, and I don’t know why I feel that way, but I do.

p.s. Blogs 19 and 20 were posted a day late, all blogs for the week should have been posted yesterday (Saturday) but these blogs were posted today (Sunday) (I am sorry).

The Child’s Bath, Mary Cassatt, 1893

Question: What does this painting show or depict?

This painting literally shows a mother bathing her child. The child is a girl, and the mother seems to treat her with great care, and very gently and calmly. The mother’s dress is very modest and covers almost every part of her body, besides her face and her hands. This reflects the expectations of women at this time, and the paleness of her cheek also reflects the modesty, calmness, and almost faintness or weakness that women were expected to display. The mother seems to be laboring for the child, by washing the child’s feet, and the child seems calmly at ease and releaxed. I really like this painting, it is colorful, but it uses calm or darker shades of colors, which gives the viewer a sense of calmness and relaxation. The painting is also very realistic, and shows great detail in the figures of the mother and the child, but it really makes them the center of attention, because the walls behind them and the rug that they are seated on are very dark, and are more abstract and less detailed as the people. These aspects of the painting really make the mother and child stand out from the background of the painting. The painting is not only painted in a realistic style, but it is also not posed. The gestures of the mother cleaning the child’s feet and the child with her hand on her knee are very realistic and add a sense of this painting being very much like a candid photograph. This painting would have been very different from the common portraits of the time, such as those of John Singer Sargent, depicting various women in tightly fitted gowns, posing in very modest or proud positions ( which depended on whether or not they were married), and looking right at the painter as their portrait was being painted. This painting is more realistic, and it conveys a sense of modesty and calmness without it being posed. In this way, it is able to really reflect the values for women of the time, without having to be posed. The woman in this painting would have been seen as very respectable for her modesty and her investment in caring for her child.

Here is the Rough Draft of my Scarlet Letter Essay…I am posting it just to back it up and make sure that I have a copy of it…

Dimmesdale’s Transformation: Body and Soul In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, the characters are set in a strict, law-governed Puritan society. Many characters are affected by the communal pressure to conform to this society, which is evident in the community through its strict rules and very specific assumptions about each member of the community and the role that they should play in the community as a whole. Several characters within the story display dramatic changes in their identities as a result of the communal pressure to conform that is present in their society. Arthur Dimmesdale exhibits a prime example of this: Dimmesdale transforms from being a passionate, prominent man in society, who is venerated by the community, to a more conservative man who lives in isolation from the community and lacks the courage to confront his own sin. Throughout the course of the story, the communal pressure to conform, which is evident in the guilt that Dimmesdale has about committing adultery with Hester, causes Dimmesdale to feel the pressures of society on his role as a minister. As a minister, Dimmesdale is expected to be the epitome of purity, and therefore, is expected to be free of sin. Because of his sin with Hester, he feels guilty as a result of the communal pressure to conform, which is evident in the guilt that he feels about committing this sin and defying the role he is expected to play in society. Dimmesdale displays the hardships of carrying around sin, especially as a minister, and he feels so guilty about his sin that he attempts to purify himself through mental and emotional torture. This torture, in addition to the fact that he becomes sick as a result of his guilt, causes him to have a transformation through the course of the story. However, the cause of his torture, suffering, sickness, and guilt about committing adultery with Hester and defying his role in the community, all comes down to the communal pressure to conform, which is the ultimate cause of Dimmesdale’s transformation.     Throughout the course of the book, Dimmesdale loses the sense of passion that he was known for at the beginning of the story. This is reflected not only in the way that “every successive Sabbath, his cheek [grows] paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous than before”, but also in the way that he looks to the future, to predict the results of his actions. At the beginning of the story, in fact, even before the book begins, Dimmesdale commits adultery with Hester, which is described as an act of “sinful passion” and love that occurred in the moment (71). However, as the story progresses, Dimmesdale displays a loss of the passion that he once possessed in the fact that he decides not to confess to the community that he committed adultery with Hester, for fear of what might happen as a result of his confession. Dimmesdale is essentially the base of the community, as a minister, and he is expected to uphold all of the Puritan religious values, and especially stay free from sin. His act of sin with Hester was something that he probably was able to predict the consequences of, but he was caught up in the moment and unable to make a decision based on the consequences he foresaw. His development as a character is evident in the way that later on in the story, when confronted with the decision of whether or not to reveal to the community that he is, in fact, the man who committed adultery with Hester, he decides not to tell the community because he predicts the consequences and makes his decision based on what he foresees. Dimmesdale is suffering from guilt because of the sin that he committed (which is a result of the communal pressure to conform), and this causes Dimmesdale’s identity to change because he becomes more careful and conservative about his actions and the decisions that he makes.  Based on the consequences of committing adultery with Hester, which are caused by the communal pressure to conform, Dimmesdale learns his lesson about not weighing the consequences before he acts. Therefore, he learns to predict the consequences of his action and make decisions based on his perception of the consequences.

Dimmesdale exhibits a change in his level of confidence throughout the story, and he becomes weaker, physically, as well as mentally and emotionally, as the story progresses, which is evident in the fact that he does not have the courage to admit to his sin. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale exhibits great courage, although he hesitates at first, by preaching to Hester in front of crowds of people, and telling her to reveal the name of the man who she committed adultery with, which is, ironically, him. However, even though Dimmesdale displays great courage in preaching to Hester about a matter that is so important to him and may have an affect on whether Dimmesdale lives or dies, he also displays a lack of courage in revealing to Hester that he “hath not the courage to grasp it for himself”, in reference to the opportunity to reveal his own name to the community as the man who committed adultery with her (60). Dimmesdale exhibits, perhaps, the most ideal example of lacking courage with the fact that he cannot admit to his own sin. Dimmesdale understands the fact that the community, as well as all of the values that it is built on, will crumble and fall apart if he confesses to the community that he was the man who committed adultery with Hester. For this reason, Dimmesdale is incapable of mustering up the courage to tell the community, and this is part of the reason for the fact that he feels obligated to perform the “midnight vigils” that he is prone to, during which he goes through the “constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself” (131). These midnight vigils allow Dimmesdale to punish himself internally, by making him conjure up images from his past and torture himself mentally and emotionally. Dimmesdale, thus, makes himself weaker mentally and emotionally by breaking himself down and criticizing himself with each of these “midnight vigils”. Therefore, as a result of the communal pressure to conform, which is manifested in the guilt that Dimmesdale feels about committing adultery with Hester, Dimmesdale becomes weaker and he loses courage, not only physically, because of his sickness, but also mentally and emotionally through the “midnight vigils” that he performs.

Throughout the course of the story, Dimmesdale becomes more and more conservative as an individual, which is mainly a result of his self-imposed isolation from the community and the “midnight vigils” that he perform on a regular basis. Dimmesdale chooses to isolate himself from the community because he feels guilty about the fact that he is not living up to the community’s expectations for him as a minister, and therefore, he tries to hide from the community and live in seclusion because he is almost disgusted with himself for what he has done and the fact that he is unable to admit to his sin. At the beginning of the story, it is evident that Dimmesdale holds a more prominent role in society than later in the story, because he sits up on a balcony with the political figures and other prestigious members of the community during the first part of Hester’s ignominy. Although at the end of the story, Dimmesdale does participate in the parade for the new governor as a prominent man in society, he imposes isolation on himself, in order to deal with his guilt, but he deceives the community, by displaying on the outside that he is prominent in society. Dimmesdale’s motives for hiding who he is on the inside, a man living in isolation and punishing himself on a regular basis, are to hide from the community and its constant pressures about who he should be in society, and also, he hides his true self in order to postpone telling the community about his sin. The reality of the situation is that Dimmesdale wears the pretends to be who everyone thinks he is, a figure representing purity and religious beliefs, and a prominent man in society, when, really, Dimmesdale is very different from what he portrays on the outside. Dimmesdale is aware that he is hiding from the community and displaying a lack of courage to confront his sin, and he punishes himself with “midnight vigils” that seek to purify him, but they only break him down and make him weaker mentally and emotionally. Therefore, although Dimmesdale tries to develop ways to deal with his guilt, he is somewhat aware that the only time he will be able to come to terms with the society, is if he openly confesses to the community. He is very reluctant to do this, for fear of what will happen to him, as well as the community, as a result, and therefore, he imposes isolation on himself, to hide from the community and attempt to purify himself, but the reality is that; it only makes him mentally and emotionally weaker, which makes him more fragile.

The fundamental idea of the affect of the communal pressure to conform on Dimmesdale’s identity, is the fact that, if the community and its strongly enforced rules and values, did not bind over Dimmesdale, he would have felt little or no guilt about committing adultery with Hester. Therefore, the guilt that he feels is a result of the communal pressure to conform in his Puritan society, which means that the results of Dimmesdale’s guilt, which include his sickness, his “midnight vigils”, his isolation from the community, and his transformation of society, are all extensions of the communal pressure to conform of the society that he lives in. Having said that, Dimmesdale transforms in three main ways as a result of the communal pressure to conform. He becomes less passionate and more cautious and conservative that he used to be, he becomes weaker and loses boldness and courage, and he holds less of a role in society and live more in isolation, which makes him more conservative. Dimmesdale goes through a very complicated transformation, in that, after he meets with Hester in the woods, until the time that he stops in the governor’s parade, he displays a sense of pride and strength that has not been seen in him for about 7 years. Although this seems to contradict the argument for the fact that Dimmesdale becomes weaker and loses strength, much of his pride and joy is a result of him “putting on a show” for the community, and this minor transformation also takes place because Dimmesdale looks forward to telling the community who he really is, and ending his suffering, which he plans to do once he reaches the scaffold. This minor transformation passes very quickly after Dimmesdale stops in the parade, when he regains his physical weakness, and needs Hester and Pearl to support him. Therefore, because this is a short and minor transformation, the overall transformation that takes place with Dimmesdale holds true, except for the fact that Dimmesdale is able to confess his sin to the community. However, this is also more complicated than it seems, because Dimmesdale never says plainly to his listeners that he committed adultery with Hester, instead he refers to himself as “he”, and he says everything in a very indirect manner. Hawthorne also makes it very clear that Dimmesdale must fight “back the bodily weakness,–and still more, the faintness of heart that was striving for mastery with him” (233). This quote reveals that Dimmesdale is forced to fight back his own lack of courage and physical weakness in order to continue with his confession to the community. This displays that Dimmesdale shows a weakness and lack of courage, that he is forced to fight back, until only a few minutes before his death. Therefore, the fact that Dimmesdale loses passion, courage, and his role in the community, throughout the book, holds true until the very end of the story.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Random House, 2000.

[ I am sorry that I am posting this blog one day late, it is Sunday, and all blogs for the week should have been posted yesterday (Saturday)]

Thesis: Dimmesdale transforms from being a passionate, prominent man in society, who is venerated by the community, to a more conservative man who lives in isolation from the community and lacks the courage to confront his own sin.  In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, the characters are set in a strict, law-governed Puritan society and many characters are affected by the communal pressure to conform which is evident in the community through its strict rules and the very specific assumptions it has about each of the members of the community and the role that they should play in the community as a whole. Several characters within the story display dramatic changes in their identities as a result of the communal pressure to conform that is present in their society. Arthur Dimmesdale exhibits a prime example of this: Dimmesdale transforms from being a passionate, prominent man in society, who is venerated by the community, to a more conservative man who lives in isolation from the community and lacks the courage to confront his own sin. Throughout the course of the story, the communal pressure to conform, which is evident in the guilt that Dimmesdale has about committing adultery with Hester, causes Dimmesdale to feel the pressures of society on his role as a minister. As a minister, Dimmesdale is expected to be the epitome of purity, and therefore, is expected to be free of sin. Because of his sin with Hester, he feels guilty as a result of the communal pressure to conform, which is evident in the guilt that he feels about committing this sin and defying the role he is expected to play in society. Dimmesdale displays the hardships of carrying around sin, especially as a minister, and he feels so guilty about his sin that he attempts to purify himself through mental and emotional torture. This torture, in addition to the fact that he becomes sick as a result of his guilt, causes him to have a transformation through the course of the story. However, the cause of his torture, suffering, and sickness is the communal pressure to conform, which causes the guilt that he feels about committing adultery with Hester. 

Body Paragraph # 1: loses passion Throughout the course of the book, Dimmesdale loses the sense of passion that he was known for at the beginning of the story. This is reflected not only in Dimmesdale’s physical appearance, as a result of his sickness, but also in the way that he displays maturity in the way that he looks to the future, to predict the results of his actions. At the beginning of the story, in fact, even before the book begins, Dimmesdale commits adultery with Hester, which is described as an act of ______________________________________________________(quotation) [Love and Passion] that occurred in the moment. However, as the story progresses, Dimmesdale displays a loss of the passion that he once possessed in the fact that he decides not to confess to the community that he committed adultery with Hester, for fear of what might happen as a result of his confession. Dimmesdale is essentially the base of the community, as a minister, and he is expected to uphold all of the Puritan religious values, and especially stay free from sin. His act of sin with Hester was something that he probably was able to predict the consequences of, but he was caught up in the moment and unable to make a decision based on the consequences he foresaw. His development as a character is evident in the way that later on in the story, when confronted with the decision of whether or not to reveal to the community that he was, in fact, the man who committed adultery with Hester, he decides not to tell the community because he predicts the consequences and makes his decision based on that. Dimmesdale is suffering from guilt because of the sin that he committed (which is a result of the communal pressure to conform) and this causes Dimmesdale to change because he becomes more careful and conservative about his actions and the decisions that he makes because of what he feels as a result of his “mistake” of not making a decision based on what he saw as the consequences when he committed adultery with Hester. It could also be argued that Dimmesdale loses passion as a result of the fact that he lives in self-imposed isolation (because of the guilt he feels), which causes him to be more confined in his thinking and actions and makes it less likely for him to be passionate, and more likely for him to behave in a more conserved manner. 

Body Paragraph # 2: becomes weaker, loses courage  

Dimmesdale exhibits a change in his level of confidence and he becomes weaker, physically, as well as mentally and emotionally, as the story progresses, in addition to the fact that he is incapable of admitting to his sin. In the beginning of the story, Dimmesdale exhibits great courage, although he hesitates at first, by preaching to Hester in front of crowds of people, and telling her to reveal the name of the man who she committed adultery with, which is, ironically, him. However, even though Dimmesdale displays great courage in preaching to Hester about a matter that is so important to him and may have an affect on whether Dimmesdale lives or dies, he also displays a lack of courage in revealing to Hester that he “hath not the courage to grasp it for himself”, in reference to the opportunity to reveal his own name to the community as the man who committed adultery with her (60). Dimmesdale exhibits, perhaps, the most ideal example of lacking courage with the fact that he cannot admit to his own sin. Dimmesdale understands the fact that the community, as well as all of the values that it is built on, will crumble and fall apart if he confesses to the community that he was the man who committed adultery with Hester. For this reason, Dimmesdale is incapable of mustering up the courage to tell the community, and this is part of the reason for the fact that he feels obligated to perform midnight vigils that he is prone to, during which he deals with the “constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself” (131). These midnight vigils allow Dimmesdale to punish himself internally, by making him conjure up images from his past and torture himself mentally and emotionally. Dimmesdale, thus, makes himself weaker mentally and emotionally by breaking himself down and criticizing himself with each of these so-called “midnight vigils”. Therefore, as a result of the communal pressure to conform, which is manifested in the guilt that Dimmesdale feels about committing adultery with Hester, Dimmesdale becomes weaker and he loses courage, not only physically, because of his sickness, but also mentally and emotionally.

Body Paragraph # 3: becomes more conservative, lives in isolation

Throughout the course of the story, Dimmesdale becomes more and more conservative as an individual, which is mainly a result of his self-imposed isolation from the community and the “midnight vigils” that he perform on a regular basis. Dimmesdale chooses to isolate himself from the community because he feels guilty about the fact that he is not living up to the communities expectations of him as a minister, and therefore, he tries to hide from the community and live in seclusion because he is almost disgusted with himself for what he has done and the fact that he is unable to admit to his sin. At the beginning of the story, it is evident that Chillingworth holds a more prominent role in society than later in the story, because he sits up on a balcony with the political figures and other important or prestigious members of the community. Although at the end of the story, Dimmesdale does participate in the parade for the new government, as a prominent man in society, he imposes isolation on himself, even though he acts prominent in society for the people of the town to see. It is almost as if Dimmesdale is lying to them because who he appears to be on the outside, a figure representing purity and religious beliefs, and a prominent man in society, when, really, Dimmesdale imposes isolation upon himself in order to hide from the community and postpone confessing to the community that he committed a sin. Dimmesdale is aware that he is hiding from the community and displaying a lack of courage to confront his sin, and he punishes himself with midnight vigils that seek to purify him, but they only make him weaker mentally and emotionally. Therefore, although Dimmesdale tries to develop ways to deal with his guilt, he is somewhat aware that the only time he will be able to come to terms with the society, is if he openly confesses to the community. He is very reluctant to do this, for fear of what will happen to him, as well as the community, as a result, and therefore, he imposes isolation on himself, to hide from the community and attempt to purify himself, but the reality is that, it only makes him mentally and emotionally weaker, which makes him more fragile.

Conclusion:

The fundamental idea of the affect of the communal pressure to conform on Dimmesdale’s identity, is the fact that, if the community and its strongly enforced rules and values, did not bind over Dimmesdale, he would not have felt the guilt that he did about committing adultery with Hester. Therefore, the guilt that he feels is a result of the communal pressure to conform in his Puritan society, which means that the results of Dimmesdale’s guilt, which include his sickness, his “midnight vigils”, his isolation from the community, and his transformation of society, are all extensions of the communal pressure to conform of the society that he lives in. Having said that, Dimmesdale transforms in three main ways as a result of the communal pressure to conform. He becomes less passionate and more cautious and conservative that he used to be, he becomes weaker and loses boldness and courage, and he holds less of a role in society and live more in isolation, which makes him more conservative.