Oppression Of Secrets In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
608 Words3 Pages
Secrets, we all have them. Life is full of them, and frankly they take away all that is good. Although we use them to protect the ones we love the most. There isn’t a secret that time doesn’t reveal in our lives. We invest so much time in keeping our secrets hidden that it takes away from who we really are. The claim asserts that being open about our secrets is better than withholding them. Arthur Dimmesdale, a character from The Scarlet Letter, is proof of such statement. He is the perfect example because of the series of events that follow him in the book. Admittedly, being open about our secrets is not always an option that is presented. In fact, many withhold secrets from everyone in order to either protect themselves or those they love. Often it is something that we can control ourselves, but in life there are things even we cannot control. When we cannot control something we turn to manipulation, deceiving, and lying as options to fix what we cannot. It is an alternative to breaking…show more content… Frankly, secrets should not always be frowned upon because in the end we benefit from them. On a deeper level, one must consider that being open about secrets is better than withholding them. In the book we can clearly see that the secret Dimmesdale is keeping is eating him alive. In the book it states “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom! Mine burns in secret! Thou little knowest what a relief it is, after the torment of a seven years’ cheat, to look into an eye that recognizes me for what I am!” This proves that confining our secrets one tears us apart from the inside. The fact that he has withheld the secret for that long was killing him both inside and out. Dimmesdale’s ultimate down fall was the secret he had been withholding from everyone. “They grew out of his heart, and typify, it maybe, some hideous secret that was