“Be True Be True Be True!”

Have you ever read the Scarlet Letter voluntarily? If so, it’s possible that people hate you. Mainly because you might stumble through life with a sour expression on your face, looking for happiness in melancholy. For the healthy people that haven’t, here’s the low down: Hester Prynne (married) and Reverend Dimmesdale commit adultery in ultra-Puritan Salem, Massachusetts. Hester is put into prison when the townspeople notice she is pregnant with her beautiful demon child named Pearl. Hester Prynne is made to wear a letter A on her chest by the Puritan leaders of the town. Meanwhile, Dimmesdale never tells anyone he is Pearl’s dad and the co-heir of the public shame Hester has been bearing by herself. 7 years later, Dimmesdale is a mess. The townspeople love him because they feel he can empathize with them and they can tell him anything. The congregation reasons that his obvious decline in health is due to his extreme devotion to the Lord – fasting and such. Dimmesdale’s guilt from hiding the secret has made him severely depressed, ill, and a bit psychotic. It’s also not helping that Hester’s ex-husband Roger Chillingworth is also posing as his Doctor/ bestfriend while insidiously triggering Dimmesdale’s own self loathing and guilt.

“Exchange this false life of thine for a true one.”

Hester Prynne

Chapter 17 really got to me. Hester finds Dimmesdale in the woods, tells him Roger Chillingworth is her evil ex hubs, and tries to convince him to leave Salem. She makes a rather compelling argument and Dimmesdale even gets a little excited, but then clings to his doom and gloom again. He says he can’t leave because he doesn’t have the strength and deserves the life he has. This particular page 136 made me want to sob in front of my high school English class as I read it aloud to them in full-fledge thespian mode. Hester tells Dimmesdale, “Leave this wreck and ruin here where it hath happened! Meddle no more with it! Begin all anew!…There is happiness to be enjoyed! There is good to be done! Exchange this false life of thine for a true one.” After class, I went to the book closet to have a conversation, just me and Hester.

“How do I exchange my life for a true one?” I asked. “You make it sound so easy. Just leave? What will I do?”

“Preach! Write! Act!” She yelled. “Do any thing, save lie down and die! Why shouldst thou tarry so much as one other day in the torments that have so gnawed into thy life — that have made thee feeble to will and to do!”

But then, it dawned on me. I don’t know how to be true.

I had always disliked Dimmesdale for being weak — for valuing his reputation as a Godly minister over Hester and Pearl. But, when put in his place, I’m not sure I could leave either. Freedom sometimes seems incredibly oppressive. Your chains become so comfortable that life without them is unimaginable. Without his oppressive circumstances in Puritan New England, who is Arthur Dimmesdale? Maybe Dimmesdale had lived so long with guilt that it had become a part of his personality and he couldn’t bear to let the townspeople down. He was afraid of leaving the comfort of an identity, even if it was killing him.

I can’t help but feel like Dimmesdale. Who am I without my self inflicted cages? But it’s hard to imagine being true to yourself when you’ve never learned how to be true at all. My whole life has been a boot-camp in how to please others – the church, my parents, the angry god of my childhood. In the pursuit of appeasement, I lost my ability to state what I think and do what I want with my life — to follow my inner voice that I alone can hear. As much as I’d like to blame others for my current unhappiness, no one’s stopping me from doing what I want with my life but me. No one’s stopping Dimmesdale from running away with Hester but himself. I don’t want to die in this emotional Massachusetts Bay like Dimmesdale did, letting my life burn away on the altar of appearances, doing what’s expected. So here’s to writing, and quitting, and saying what needs to be said. Thanks Hester.