Seth B. Draper
Mister Pauley
English IIIA
September 2, 2004
Sinning; a Little Death We all Confront 
Love the sinner hate the sin. Bring repentance even if it requires threats and torture. Both of these ideas evolve from a main idea, which is how a person deals with sin. From the conception of iniquity and repentance, people have had guilt about certain acts they have committed. No matter how hard a person tries eventually they will have to deal with the fact they have done a thing that they wish could be undone. The interesting aspect of all of this is that there are certain patterns that most people follow when grieving anything (Josephs). This pattern has been noticed by one Kubler-Ross, and she compiles it into five stages, anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. A literary example of this is in the Scarlet Letter. In this book it is evident Kubler-Ross’s grieving process, explained through the five stages of death, manifests itself in Reverend Mister Dimmesdale’s confrontation of his own sin.
Modifications must be made to Kubler-Ross’s five stages of death for it to be applicable to Reverend Mister Dimmesdale’s situation. Of the five stages, three of them, denial, bargaining, and acceptance, must be modified. Denial in the initial theory means that a person outright claims and believes that they will not die; in a sinner’s life, denial can take many forms (Adulthood). The other way that it can become embodied, besides the blatant one, is in hiding the fact. This is a type of denial because it allows the person to slip out of the repercussions and stops the person from moving on to the next stage. Bargaining also has to be modified because in Kubler-Ross’s first proposed idea is about a person pleading with a deity to save their life so that they can do something pleasing to the god (Adulthood). A major adjustment has to be made to this one; bargaining must come to mean justification which will be defined as guiltlessness by means of atonement. At this stage a person will now try to negate their sin by arguing that instead of it being sin they were right because of something else. An example of this is someone saying a lie is okay due to the fact that they are trying to not hurt someone’s feelings. Acceptance is going to be the most problematic one to understand in its new form. Firstly, it was the state of being someone was in when they could talk and be real about their imminent death while keeping calm emotions (Adulthood). In this case though, acceptance means that one has the ability to move on. A person will dwell on their sin for quite a bit of time. Truly, it can haunt a person for years. When one moves into acceptance, it stops this harrowing feeling. To accept sin allows a person to know they have sinned, but it does not cause further remorse. Through all of these numerations, the modifications have been made to the original theory offered by Kubler-Ross. 
With the modifications made to Kubler-Ross’s theory, Dimmesdale’s intrapersonal journey is a great example of someone progressing through these phases. As the story progresses, it is plain to see that the Reverend is going through two stages at once: anger and denial. The evidence is found in the interview with Hester while she is being publicly questioned. He preaches to all the people and to Hester Prynne that she needs to confess and repent because it is sin to do otherwise. Furthering his point, he goes on to say that it is nothing but trouble for the name of her accomplice to go unspoken.  The way he speaks is as if he is not the adulterer which is an outright denial. This is an example of him hiding his sin; he is trying to make it go away by burying it. But as he goes about hiding his sin he performs denial in another way; he rebukes it. He gets impassioned with berating and being righteously enraged about the very essence of sin. To boil it down to one colloquial word, he is angry. His anger is over the fact that he has sinned, and now he wants to sentence all of sin to a place of hellish reputation because of how he was a part of it. The anger does not stop, but the stage that the anger is in does. It transitions itself from the stage of anger to the stage of depression which coincides with him going through bargaining. Depression is just the acceptance of one’s sin with the accompanying of grief or shame which manifests itself into resentment. The feelings are the same but the transition is noted by a person moving from denying the fact to bargaining the fact. Reverend Mister Dimmesdale’s move from one stage to another is denoted by the actions which he takes. He stops preaching against sin trying to condemn it, and he progresses to the attitude of edifying people in their walk with God. Evidence of the latter part having been bargaining is provable in the motives. Once he was trying to cover it up, now he is trying to make it up. The reason he goes into helping people so much is that he wants to atone for his sin. At this stage in his grief the Reverend has acknowledged his sin and is trying to repent with actions. One, however, can only truly find repentance by openly admitting and confronting one’s own sin openly in the public. This point is apparent as Reverend Mister Dimmesdale dies on the scaffolding. When this happens, he reaches the true acceptance stage. Now, he can move on and be at peace with his sin. It is plain to see when he says that now is the time for him to take his shame upon him. He is now on to the point where he is ready to truly move to acceptance because he wants to have it open so everyone knows it; he tore off his mantle and exposed his scarlet letter for all spectators to see. It is the most validated point one can make to say that Reverend Mister Dimmesdale moves through the five stages of death.
Dimmesdale moves through his grieving process nonlinearly because society affects it. The duration of the tumultuous feeling and the order of appearance are directly influenced by the community. If the masses of people there felt, had felt, and would always feel that adultery was acceptable, Reverend Mister Dimmesdale would never have had to feel guilty or confront his supposed sin. Another way that society affects a person’s trek through this confrontation is that it influences the way someone will bargain.  When Dimmesdale tries to justify, still defined as the pursuit of atonement, his sin, he performs a physical act of repentance. In the context of Reverend Mister Dimmesdale’s community redemption is a fruitless effort. Once one sins, one has fallen and has begun the descent into the pits of hell. Because of this sentiment, the Reverend struggles with how to atone for his transgression. As he is confused as to what to do, Dimmesdale completes a multitude of things. He ranges in acts from bodily mutilation, evident by the scarlet letter on his chest, to being the holiest of ministers, proven by all the people he converts and edifies. While these alterations seem to be extreme, one still exists that is even more severe; society denies Reverend Mister Dimmesdale acceptance. For him to be allowed to come to acceptance he must be able to openly talk about it. The puritan society made sin a taboo subject. The secrecy made necessary by the strict, unforgiving nature of puritan beliefs disallows people acceptance. It was said in the book that if all those guilty were put on the scaffolding, a far greater number would be present. People were stigmatized to the point that they were ostracized from society. When something like that is impolite and not allowed to be talked about, they have to hide the fact; as long as the people have to hide the fact of what they do or are, they cannot achieve acceptance. This is seen in the Reverend because through the story he continually stays in stages until he lets out his secret at the end. Truly, this is the worst because a person can coexist in multiple stages at once; these stages are filled with nerve racking emotions. It can kill a person with the strength it can achieve as is the case with Reverend Mister Dimmesdale in the Scarlet Letter. Society is the biggest variable in the equation of confronting sin; it controls not only how the stages exhibit themselves, but how long and for what intensity they are around.
When Reverend Mister Dimmesdale acknowledges he is a sinner, the five stages of death become embodied in the confrontation of his iniquity. As modifications are made to the phases, denial, bargaining, and acceptance and societies affects are taken into account, it is seen that sin is a little death we deal with. Because no matter whether one believes “love the sinner hate the sin” or “by whatever means even if that is threats and torture” a person will confront sin and move through these stages of grief.

Works Cited

Adulthood #4. 9 Sept. 2004 <www.athena7.com/adult4.htm>.
Jabusch, Willard F. “Relative Morality- experiences of their relatives affect positions of Catholic clergy on divorce, homosexuality and other issues- Brief Article” Commonweal 3 Nov 2000.
Josephs, Many “On Death and Dying Revisited” Clinicians Review April 2001.
“Should he die? Supreme Court tackles death penalty for teens- U.S.” Current Events 19 March 2004.