William Lai
AP American Literature- Mr. George
January 12, 2009
Essay Topic 3
How do you wash away sin?

How do you wash away your sins? This may seem to be a silly question today, but this was actually a lifelong question of the past, specifically in Puritanical society. Puritan society lacked an answer to this question due to the way their society was founded and constructed. The authors of The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter elected to answer this question through their characters’ responses to having sinned in a social order where reconciliation did not exist. Both authors use the sin of adultery as a catalyst to evoke an answer from the characters pertaining to where redemption can be found. The characters from both books obtain forgiveness from two places: forgiveness and God.
The Puritans were originally Christians from England, but they chose to leave after the creation of the Church of England. In the eyes of the Puritans, the Church of England was impure, lacking proper religious and societal rules. They left England for the stormy shores of New England, where they were free to construct their own society with their own religious beliefs. One societal and religious change the Puritans made, was to stress social and theological conformity. This conformity, enforced harsh punishment on those who did not follow the rules or normal attitudes of the Puritan community, which they believed through The Bible. Nathaniel Hawthorne clearly outlines this regimentation through the reaction of the Puritan community when Hester Prynne stands on the scaffold for the first time: “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it? Truly, there is, both in the Scripture and the statute-book” (Hawthorne 48). When a person does not abide by the community's rules, they are met with contempt and ridicule, as Hester was in The Scarlet Letter. Puritan strictness and conformity were stressed to such a degree that it left them with “no ritual for the washing away of sins” (Miller 20). Those who sinned were forced to find reconciliation for their sins on their own.
In The Crucible, the main character John Proctor, tries to find redemption for his sin of lechery. He soon encounters a problem: where does redemption come from? He believed that redemption comes from others, so he first searches for forgiveness from his wife. Instead of finding forgiveness, he is met with a coldness “that could freeze beer” (20). He did not expect the harshness that he had received from his wife; “I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted, and, like a Christian, I confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day” (55). After confessing to his wife, he did not find reconciliation for his sin, so he again tries to seek it from others, this time the community.
John Proctor admits to the community that he committed adultery, in an attempt to end Abigail’s supposed witch hunt and to come clean with his sin, but once again it bares the opposite affect he intended. He is now thrown in jail, accused of witchcraft, and is still burdened with inner turmoil from his sin. His frustration with not being able to wash away his sin is expressed before he is arrested, “I say –say –God is dead!” (119).
John Proctor finally finds peace from his sin when Rebecca Nurse sees him sign a paper calling himself a witch. Rebecca Nurse professes her shock saying, “Why it is a lie, it is a lie; how may I damn myself?” (140). This sparks the idea that instead of seeking peace from his peers, he should be seeking it from God. When he seeks peace from God, he finds the inner peace: “There’s your first marvel […] for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor” (144). And while Proctor goes to his death the author makes it clear that Elizabeth has fully forgiven Proctor for his sin; “He have his goodness now” (145). John Proctor found redemption from his peers and from God.
Dimmesdale, the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter, also faces the daunting task of finding redemption after committing adultery. But, he takes a different approach when he tries to find reconciliation. He seeks it from God rather than seeking it from the public. He tried to find repentance from God by abusing himself both mentally and physically. He mentally punished himself through his silence of his sin because “he loved the truth, and loathed the lie” (Hawthorne 131) yet the community loved him as a saint. Thus, he loathed his miserable self, for he was the lie that he hated so much. This self hate drove him to physically punish himself with a whip. These acts of self retribution did not satisfy him though, because he still felt inner conflict over his sin which manifested itself as a burning letter A on his chest.
Dimmesdale finds peace at the end of The Scarlet Letter when he mounts the scaffold with Hester and Pearl. There, he finally makes known to everyone in the community of his sin: “People of New England! Ye, that have loved me! –ye, that have deemed me holy! –behold me here, the one sinner of the world!” (228). After this he pulls off his shirt to reveal “what has seared his inmost heart!” (228). By doing this he finally comes clean of his sin to the public. Hawthorne shows that the community had forgiven Dimmesdale through Pearl, as she “kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies” (229). Then Dimmesdale says, “The law we broke! –the sin here so awfully revealed! –let these alone be in thy thoughts! […] He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy most of all, in my afflictions” (229). This justifies that one must seek forgiveness from God. Ergo, God and Dimmesdale’s peers forgave Dimmesdale for his sins.
Both John Proctor and Dimmesdale sought redemption for their sins by seeking forgiveness publicly from the community and privately from God. By doing so, they found peace to the turmoil over the sin they committed. But one may ask if the Puritans were so devout to God would they not say that God is the ultimate judge so redemption only comes from God, as seen in Dimmesdale’s final words, “The law we broke! –the sin here so awfully revealed! –let these alone be in thy thoughts!” (229). This is wrong because the Puritans were devout people who thought that The Bible was book of rules to live by. And in The Bible it says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13). So people can find redemption from others but must equally find it from God, because “the dead were judged by their deeds” (Revelations 20:12). Both The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, show this through Dimmesdale’s reconciliation from God and Pearl, and through John Proctor’s reconciliation from God and Elizabeth. Thus, redemption can be sought from both God and being forgiven by others.
John Proctor and Dimmesdale first tried to find peace from different things but in the end they found peace when they sought it from their peers and God. Both characters in their books sought to find forgiveness in a singular way in which they failed to find it. But, when both characters adopt a second way, they find reconciliation. Proctor first sought forgiveness from others without success, and Dimmesdale first sought forgiveness from God without success. It was not until they sought reconciliation from both other people and God were they finally released from their sins. Sin is washed away through God and the community’s forgiveness.