There's An Angel On My Nose

 

Humanity consists of the good - happiness, love, compassion - and the bad - anger, fear, revenge. Basic humanity itself is the the devil and the angel hovering over each individual's conscious, but above  these impulses, these instincts and passions that seem to govern each individual's very being rests the true bringer of everyone's essence, which is choices. Simple choices -  little miniscule, seemingly meaningless decisions, such as picking up a pencil of a fellow student -  even these are at the crux of each person's character. Minister Dimmesdale exemplifies this exceptionally in the Scarlet Letter as he struggles to maintain his goodness and good stature within the Puritan community. However, he cannot retain his integrity because the cowardliness of his choices has corrupted it, and  has allowed the devil on his shoulder, aptly named Chillingworth, to torment his soul. The pitiful minister loses himself amidst his inability to expose the truth, and although after seven years of agony, the angel, Hester, who represents the love and goodness that sleeps dormant within the pitiful minister, appears to guide him out of his self-inflicted torture, she cannot. He asks her , "Think for me.  Though art strong. Resolve for me,"(Hawthorne 193) and although she attempts to by arranging an escape, she is foiled by her opposite, old Roger, her husband. That the symbols and agents of good and evil were once married is ironic, yet it seems to parallel how they are two sides of one humanity, and how good and evil, God and Lucifer, were once united. Maybe then, it is not that children are neither good nor evil and therefore innocent but that they are both, so selfish and yet incapable of harming others, and that the two parties within them are at a stalemate. This is what permits the thriving and capacity of both affection and loathing, bravery and cowardice, good and bad within each person and makes decisions so crucial. This is why the decision of Dimmesdale to reveal his part in the adultery that ruined Hester, and therefore the goodness within him, delivers him from evil and into the light. Although both Hester and Chillingworth toil to sway the reverend, he is the only one able to unshackle himself from damnation.