Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a seventeenth century Baptist preacher, commented that, "Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of." An individual either faces their actions or runs from them, and Gothic Romance authors often write about the evil that emerges in people when they conceal their sins. Throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrates this idea through the actions of his three main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. In spite of the nearly equal severity of their sins, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth and Hester react to their dilemmas in varying ways such as guilt, revenge and reconciliation.

Although he portrays the pious pastor, Arthur Dimmesdale handles his sin, adultery, by hiding this fault from everyone and in turn destroys himself with his guilt. Beginning in chapter three, the townspeople constantly see Dimmesdale with his...