Dimmesdale's Dilemma and Solution in 'The Scarlet Letter': A Look at Guilt, Confession, and Redemption

Dimmesdale's dilemma in 'The Scarlet Letter' is between his guilt for committing adultery with Hester Prynne and his public image as a respected minister in the Puritan community. He agonizes over whether to confess his sin publicly and accept the consequences or to continue living with the burden of his secret sin.

His solution is to deliver a powerful sermon on the Day of Election, in which he confesses his sin to the entire town without explicitly naming Hester as his partner in adultery. He reveals his guilt and asks for forgiveness, prompting the townspeople to see him in a new light and admire his honesty and courage.

The original text reads:

'He had been driven hither by the impulse of that Remorse which dogged him everywhere, and whose own sister and closely linked companion was that Cowardice which invariably drew him back, with her tremulous gripe, just when the other impulse had hurried him to the verge of a disclosure. Poor, miserable man! what right had infirmity like his to burden itself with crime? Crime is for the iron-nerved, who have their choice either to endure it, or, if it press too hard, to exert their fierce and savage strength for a good purpose, and fling it off at once! This feeble and most sensitive of spirits could do neither, yet continually did one thing or another, which intertwined, in the same inextricable knot, the agony of heaven-defying guilt and vain repentance.'

'He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself.'

'He longed to speak out from his own pulpit at the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he was. 'I, whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood, I, who ascend the sacred desk, and turn my pale face heavenward, taking upon myself to hold communion in your behalf with the Most High Omniscience, I, in whose daily life you discern the sanctity of Enoch--I, whose footsteps, as you suppose, leave a gleam along my earthly track, whereby the Pilgrims that shall come after me may be guided to the regions of the blest--I, who have laid the hand of baptism upon your children--I, who have breathed the parting prayer over your dying friends, to whom the Amen sounded faintly from a world which they had quitted--I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!''

'But, withal, he felt a blessed relief from the terrors which had haunted him for so long a time. It was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books. But to Hawthorne's readers, the result of this self-torture is heart-rending.'