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Justine Nguyen
English II Honors
Mrs. O'Neill
7 June 2013
A Window Into the Mind
People take windows for granted. One looks out of them and automatically accepts that
the view outside is an accurate and truthful depiction of real life. Some, however, can never take
in their experiences with this same blind and unconscious trust. Their windows into the world are
made of warped glass, glass distorted by their own minds. Through these windows, the lines
between reality and fantasy are blurred; one can no longer trust others, or ultimately, themselves.
For some, not only is the glass contorted, but the window also serves as a horrifying tool for
others to look in and pry inside their lives. The curtains are drawn, and the person becomes
closed off, smothering themselves in the darkness needed to feed the monsters of anxiety,
suspicion, and distrust. It is a window called paranoid personality disorder and one that writers
Arthur Miller and Nathaniel Hawthorne examine in The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter. When
analyzing their respective characters, Reverend Samuel Parris and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale,
clear symptoms of paranoid personality disorder are brought into light.
As its name suggests, paranoid personality disorder is generally characterized by
excessive and pervasive suspicion (Paranoid Personality Disorder 1). The first diagnosis of the
disorder is credited to a prestigious French psychiatrist, Magnan, who mentioned it in 1893 and

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categorized it into either prolonged or intermittent delusional periods (Akhtar 5-6). In 1905,
Kraepelin reported a similar personality type, one that is always in conflict with the world and
seeks out things to complain about, but without the delusions mentioned by Magnan; Kraepelin
later named this disorder paranoid personality (Akhtar 6). Though further analyses and
definitions have been developed by experts in psychiatry, such as Bleuler, Kretschmer, and
Jaspers, paranoid personality disorder is still an understudied illness and is mostly only identified
in conjunction with paranoid schizophrenia (Akhtar 6, 8). Paranoid personality disorder is often
diagnosed in families with a history of psychotic disorders and is more prevalent in men
(Paranoid Personality Disorder 1).
Interestingly, both works of literature, The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, take place in
a Puritanical society; each character being examined in relation to paranoid personality disorder
is the reverend of their respective communities. Reverend Samuel Parris of The Crucible is in his
mid-forties and has the position of authority in the small town of Salem. A widower, he is
responsible for his young daughter, Betty, and his orphaned niece, Abigail Williams. When the
two become central and powerful figures in the Salem witch trials, Parris also takes an ingrained
role in the proceedings. The Scarlet Letter's Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is a young clergyman
educated in a respectable English university. Gifted with genuine expression and a reputation of
honest religiousness and purity, he is loved by the colony. Unbeknownst to the people, he has
committed adultery with the novel's protagonist, Hester Prynne, and has a daughter with her.
Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter for this sin. Despite their differences, both Parris and
Dimmesdale reveal characteristics associated with paranoid personality disorder (Miller,
Hawthorne).

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A key symptom of paranoid personality disorder is an unshakeable feeling of suspicion
and distrust of others (Akhtar 13). In his fear that someone will discover his secret, the fact that
he has committed adultery, Dimmesdale shuts himself off from others, much like that of
paranoid personality disorder patients, who are extremely alert, cautious, and closed-off due to a
fear of threats. (American Psychiatric Association 1). Sparked by his guilt, a certain
morbidness, to which sick hearts are liable, had...rendered him suspicious of all mankind.
(Hawthorne 122). Roger Chillingworth, a doctor who is trying to get revenge on Dimmesdale,
tries to employ the carefulness he knows is necessary due to Dimmesdale's paranoia.
Chillingworth's plan is to befriend Dimmesdale and establish himself as a trusted confidante to
whom Dimmesdale can tell his deepest and most sinful secrets (Hawthorne 131). Despite his
calculated approach, the clergyman's shy and sensitive reserve had balked this scheme
(Hawthorne 131). When Chillingworth urges Dimmesdale to open up his troubled soul,
Dimmesdale responds frightfully with Nonot to thee!...But who are thou....that darest thrust
himself between the sufferer and his God? and dashes out of the room to escape. The colonists
are eager to have a perfectly willing Chillingworth treat Dimmesdale for his mysterious illness,
but the minister rejects any medicine and help even though the doctor has not yet shown his
venom (Hawthorne 114). Despite Chillingworth's calculations, the minister does keep him at
arm's length with the usual suspicion. Likewise, Parris is first introduced in The Crucible as one
who feels a never-ending sense of persecution (Miller 3). Therefore when Giles compliments
him by calling him determined, Parris seems caught off guard, as if he cannot believe this
goodwill (Miller 29). Due to his natural and overzealous suspicion, he is used to being attacked.
Both Parris and Dimmesdale's interactions with others are hindered by their distrust.

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People suffering from paranoid personality disorder may exhibit thinly hidden,
unrealistic grandiose fantasies [and] are often attuned to issues of power and rank, just like
Dimmesdale and Parris do and are (American Psychiatric Association 1). As high standing
authorities in their respective communities, Parris and Dimmesdale both show signs of paranoia
concerning the unraveling of their reputations. Kilborne's literary criticism reflects on how
Dimmesdale's hiding of the truth is because As the adored minister...he must conform to his
image (Kilborne 473). He may feel guilty about letting Hester take all of the humiliation of their
shared sin, but his self preservation and love for being loved outweighs this. Parris is obsessed
with conspiracy and his suspicion that he is being undermined by the townspeople who hate him.
In his mind, everyone is out to get him and challenge his authority; he strongly believes that
there is a group in the community whose sole goal is to drive him from his position of minister
(Miller 10). He tells John Proctor that he can relay a message to his followers, to which Proctor
responds with bewilderment; Parris admits that there is a faction in the church against him, but
Proctor is clueless of this (Miller 28-29). It seems Parris is the only one who really believes such
a faction exists. As a result of his extreme paranoia, Parris is very self-absorbed, with only his
own best interests at heart. When Susanna Walcott comes to say that the doctor suspects the
cause of Betty's illness to be unnatural, Parris does not want the doctor to look into it further like
any concerned father would do in hopes of curing her (Miller 9). On the contrary, he flatly denies
the concern of witchcraft, because, as he later says, They will howl me out of Salem for such
corruption in my house (Miller 9, 13). With Parris, everything is always about the faceless
they. It shows how Parris is not truly aware of specific people who show signs of rebellion, but
imagines that there is some group that does. Even though his delusions are negative, he still

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holds on to the pretentious fantasy that almost all of Salem wants to throw him out of his
position. Parris needs to feel the dominance and control he deserves as reverend, just like those
with paranoid personality disorder who pay particular attention to power (American Psychiatric
Association 1). Similar to Parris's self-centered concerns, Dimmesdale also experiences an
egocentric delusion in which he looks up at the sky and sees a huge red A written in the sky.
He believes that this is a symbol directed towards him regarding his crime of adultery, that the
omnipresent God sees through his guise. Though in reality, the meteor's path is made vague and
shapeless through the clouds, the way he sees something as objective as nature is still distorted.
Dimmesdale's paranoia is so great that he believes that the same sky that hangs over everyone's
heads is delivering a signal exclusively to himself, pointing to his truly overblown and delusional
state of mind. The narrator attributes Dimmesdale's interpretation his highly disordered mental
state and the disease in his own eye and heart (Hawthorne 146).
As seen in Parris's and Dimmesdale's behavior, those suffering from paranoid personality
disorder will act towards others in a hostile manner that stems from their deep mistrust
(American Psychiatric Association 1). For example, some people with the disorder are easily
hurt or affronted, also a characteristic typical of Reverend Parris (Akhtar 14). He is described as
to take offense if someone at a meeting closes the door without a request for his permission to do
so beforehand (Miller 3). When Proctor simply states Parris is given money allotted for
firewood, Parris immediately fires back with I am not some preaching farmer with a book under
my arm; I am a graduate of Harvard College! (Miller 28). His unreasonable interpretation of a
fact is that he is being devalued by having to spend his own wages on wood. The manner in
which he responds is also reminiscent of paranoid personality disorder patients, who display a

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quickness to counterattack in response to the threats they perceive around them (American
Psychiatric Association 1). Related to Parris's argumentative behavior is how Dimmesdale's
growing paranoia stokes a fire of what used to be uncharacteristic enmity. Those with paranoid
personality disorder also often hostile and sarcastic (American Psychiatric Association 1).
Dimmesdale does have an episode in which he is tempted to say inappropriate and horrible
things to people he sees on the streets, people who look up to him as a role model and mentor.
He feels the urge to blight all the field of innocence with but one wicked look, and develop all
its opposite with but a word as he passes by a young girl and has to stop himself from teaching
children bad words (Hawthorne 209-210). This caustic behavior can barely be suppressed,
causing Dimmesdale to question his sanity. A church member might say that this behavior is
uncharacteristic, but Dimmesdale's disorder does bring out this side of him. Hostility, often
related to paranoid personality disorder, is seen in Dimmesdale and Parris's actions.
Additionally, Dimmesdale and Parris exhibit hypersensitivity, another symptom of
paranoid personality disorder (Akhtar 14). Despite the people's blind adoration of him,
Dimmesdale lives in a constant state of fear; he is a being who...could only be at ease in some
seclusion of his own, away from mostly nonexistent discerning eyes (Hawthorne 63). His
daughter Pearl notices, however, that Dimmesdale has a nervous tic of clutching his heart
(Hawthorne 218). According to Benjamin Kilborne, this habit is a gesture that cannot begin to
convey the depth or intensity of his suffering...a gesture of an inscrutable attempt to hide
(Kilborne 473). Even though nobody can see it through his clothes, covering his heart is
Dimmesdale's unconscious attempt to conceal his own scarlet letter burned into his skin.
(Hawthorne 244). Also noted is his lack of eye contact with other people, a classic sign of

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nervousness; he even has the tendency to avoid directly looking at inanimate objects (Hawthorne
123). Parris also shows signs of such restlessness throughout the trials such as when he
nervously moves over and reads over Danforth's shoulder a list of names and breaks out in a
sweat (Miller 86, 87). Exhibiting excessive and obsessive anxiety, Parris and Dimmesdale can be
considered to suffer from paranoid personality disorder.
The act of [distorting] experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of
others as hostile is a listed symptom of paranoid personality disorder that correlates with actions
of Dimmesdale and Parris (The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders
158). Dimmesdale's restlessness is excessive and is laced with paranoia, causing him to interpret
people's actions negatively. When Pearl playfully throws a burr at himfrom the other side of
the windowthe sensitive clergy man [shrinks] with nervous dread from the light missile
(Hawthorne 126). Emphasized by the author's juxtaposition of the words light and missile,
Dimmesdale shies away from harmless things as though they are a grave danger to him. He has
the tendency to magnify petty things into threats. Parris also reacts strangely to a friendly action
towards the end of the play; Hathorne says good morning to the reverend, but Parris does not
respond and only walks on with the look a madman (Miller 115). As Reverends Parris and
Dimmesdale misconstrue others' harmless actions, both show clear signs of paranoid personality
disorder.
The personalities of Reverends Parris and Dimmesdale's are like shards of glass. The
suspicion, the delusions, the hostility, the hypersensitivity, and the misinterpretation are both
clear in their behavior and harmful. In writing The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, both Arthur
Miller and Nathaniel Hawthorne pieced the shards together into their characters. They created

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these windows where the light streaming through is fragmented by the cracks in the panes,
betraying the fragility of their minds.

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Works Cited
Akhtar, Salman. "Paranoid Personality Disorder: A Synthesis of Developmental, Dynamic, and
Descriptive Features." American Journal of Psychotherapy (1990). GreenFILE. Web.
14 May 2013.
American Psychiatric Association "Paranoid Personality Disorder." Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders. 4th ed. 1994. Haverford University. Web. 3 June 2013.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. 1850. New York: Penguin Group, 2009. Print.
"The ICD-10 Classification of Mental and Behavioural Disorders." World Health Organization.
World Health Organization. Web. 12 May 2013.
Kilborne, Benjamin. "Shame Conflicts and Tragedy in the Scarlet Letter." Journal of the
American Psychoanalytic Association. 2005. Web. 14 May 2013.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. 1953. New York: Penguin Group, 2003. Print.
Paranoid Personality Disorder. PubMed Health. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 12 Nov.
2012. Web. 30 Apr. 2013.