This is where the Romantics legitimized individual imagination as a critical authority. At one point, Dimmesdale showed the town his scarlet letter, and many people had different explanations for it. "It was asserted by some that the Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale, on the very day that Hester Prynne first wore her ignominious badge, had begun a course of penance - which he afterwards followed, by so many futile methods - by inflicting upon himself a hideous torture” (Hawthorne 240). saw, the way they saw Dimmesdale would change The different explanations are good examples of how romance writers left mystery in their novels The screenwriters wanted to bring the imagination of the characters and the readers to the.