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In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne three major events occur on the town scaffold. The scaffold serves as a place of public humiliation and shame. Hawthorne places three events that occur on the scaffold that play a major role. The first appearance of the scaffold is when Hester serves her time of public humiliation. The second appearance of the scaffold scene is throughout the middle of the novel when Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale arrive together on the scaffold. Hawthorne then brings the three back together once again in the third scaffold scene to end the tragic story of the Scarlet Letter. The three scaffold scenes play major roles throughout Hester and Dimmesdale’s life. The first scaffold scene focuses on Hester and the scarlet letter. Hawthorne is using this to show the value of Hester's public humiliation, the baby, and the letter A. Hawthorne states,” She ascended a flight of wooden steps, and was thus displayed to the surrounding …show more content…
Dimmesdale makes his way down to the scaffold while stressing over his guilt. Hawthorne states,” The whole town will awake and hurry forth, and find me here!”(99). Dimmesdale believes that everyone is staring at the scarlet letter over his heart. He yelled trying to get the town to awake and find him standing on the scaffold so he could confess his sin. Hawthorne states,” And there stood the minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne, with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom; and little Pearl, herself a symbol, and the connecting link between those two”(103). They stood on the scaffold as if it was their chance to reveal all their secrets. Dimmesdale believes that their secrets were revealed and that as the sun comes up everyone who belongs together will be together. This scaffold scene is representing how the guilt of Dimmesdale's sin is burning inside of him and him not knowing what to
The three scaffold scenes bring great significance to the plot of the Scarlet Letter. The novel is based on repenting the sins of adultery. The scaffold represents a place of shame and pity but also of final triumphs. Each scene illustrates the importance of the scaffold behind them with many potent similarities and differences.
The first scaffold scene takes place in the very beginning of the story. Hester Prynne, a woman who has committed adultery and will not name the father of her child, is forced to stand upon the scaffold in shame for three hours in front of a crowd of people. Dimmesdale, who is later revealed as the father, openly denies his sin and even goes as far as telling Hester to "speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer," in order to make sure that nobody suspects him. While the author doesn't make his guilt very obvious, he does give a few hints that suggest Dimmesdale does have some sort of hidden secret. In this scene, the Reverend shows his original strength of character, which he slowly loses over the course of the story.
Not only in this story of the Scarlet Letter, but throughout the early churches, we often see religious leaders in this predicament of coming forward or not coming forward with the truth of their role within certain situations. Hester, on the other hand, is portrayed as strong but also abandoned, because she is standing alone for the sins she could not have committed alone. Dimmesdale also struggles with confessing to Pearl the truth and keeping it from her. At first he is regarded as being selfish for not confessing right away and as a result, when he does confess, it is not well received from Pearl at all. This is not only because she is flustered from finding out, but Pearl knows that Dimmesdale abandoned them at first as he weighed the options.
Dimmesdale considers the timing fortunate as it aligns with his Election Day sermon and feels that there could not be a more suitable way to end his career as a minister. He thinks to himself, “At least, they shall say of me, that I leave no public duty unperformed, nor ill performed!’” (Hawthorne 146). Up until the moment of his histrionic confession on the scaffold, Dimmesdale acts to maintain his respected reputation in the Puritan society. Even his final confession is a performance before the town. As analyzed by literary critic Terrence Martin, “...in keeping with the brilliant economy of The Scarlet Letter, the moment at which Dimmesdale commits himself consciously to deadly liberating sin becomes the moment at which he secretly wishes to cap his public life with a final burst of eloquence on the most important occasion the Puritan community can offer.” His death is his final act of hypocrisy, as he declares that he stands with them but leaves Hester and Pearl alone again to face society. His confession, like his silence, was a grandiose facade for an act of
The characters Hawthorne develops are deep, unique, and difficult to genuinely understand. Young, tall, and beautiful Hester Prynne is the central protagonist of this story. Shamefully, strong-willed and independent Hester is the bearer of the scarlet letter. Burning with emotion, she longs for an escape from her mark, yet simultaneously, she refuses to seem defeated by society’s punishment. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale claims the secondary role in The Scarlet Letter; he is secretly Hester’s partner in adultery. Conflicted and grieved over his undisclosed act, he drives himself to physical and mental sickness. He fervently desires Hester, but should he risk his godly reputation by revealing the truth? Dimmesdale burns like Hester. Pearl, the child produced in Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, is the third main character. She is fiery, passionate, perceiving, and strikingly symbolic; at one point in the novel she is referred to as “the scarlet letter endowed with life!” Inevitably, Pearl is consumed with questions about herself, her mother, and Dimmesdale. The reader follows Pearl as she discovers the truth. Altogether, Hawthorne’s use of intricately complex, conflicted ch...
Hawthorne uses the scaffold scenes to show how the presence of light and dark gives insight into the characters nature. In the first scaffold scene, Hester releases not only her guilt about her crime, but, she also releases Pearl to the society and creates in Pearl the need for strength and determination that she will need to overcome the legacy of her creation. In this scene she also creates the need in Dimmesdale to absolve himself of his guilt. The second scaffold scene is the opportunity for Dimmesdale to attempt to release his guilt from the first scaffold. However, Pearl creates a need in Dimmesdale to repent in front of the town. During the third scaffold scene, Dimmesdale is able to release his guilt about his crime and his lack of strength. He is also able to complete his obligation to accept the hands of Pearl and Hester on the platform from the second scaffold scene. Through his confession, he creates a sense of reality for the entire town. It can be clearly seen that what is created in the first scaffold is released in the second scaffold; while, the things created in the second scaffold are finally released in the third and final scaffold. The darkness during the second scaffold scene is covered in darkness, which display the symbols of reality and truth. There is another complexity to the scaffold scenes in the presence, or lack there of, of lighting. The first scaffold
She lost all her fiery passion on the scaffold, by which society mocked and watched and she was punished for the sins she committed. The scaffold became the essence of sin and hatred for Hester, Hawthorne created the meaning of this by stating things like the scaffold was “the very ideal of ignominy [and] was embodied and made manifest in this contrivance of wood and iron”. Hester makes her transformation on this scaffold and although she is silent ad still filled with anger, she will never be the same due pain she felt on that scaffold. Through society's punishments and harsh bias, Hester is stripped of all passion and this is continually argued with her change as she wears the scarlet letter. In the beginning, Hester tries to cover it up, but the burn of those eyes who look upon her still stand. ONce in the free spirit environment of the forest and she takes the scarlet A off she becomes happy and passionate once again that even her own daughter doesn’t recognize
Hester and Dimmesdale’s affair goes undiscovered until Hester is pregnant and bears a child without having her husband present. As her punishment, Hester is forced to stand on the scaffold in the middle of the market place, with an A on her chest. Dimmesdale has not told a single person that he is the adulterer. He sits in the balcony with the Governor, a judge, a general, and the rest of the ministers, watching the display, without any expression or emotion. Hester and Pearl go to the Governor’s home to deliver a pair of gloves, but more importantly to inquire about the possibility of the government taking away her child. Also there with Governor Bellingham are Pastor Wilson, Reverend Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth. After Mr. Wilson asks Pearl a few questions, the Governor decides that Hester is unfit as a mother and that the child would be better off in the hands of the church. Hester begs Dimmesdale, whom she says knows everything about her and has charge of her soul, to speak for her. Therefore, he does, convincing the Governor to let Hester keep Pearl. This is Dimmesdale’s first step to becoming the moral blossom. Late at night, a few years after the previous incident, Dimmesdale takes a walk through the town. He climbs onto the scaffold and pretends to confess; though there is no one out at this time at night. Hester and Pearl, on their way home, pass Dimmesdale on the scaffold. Dimmesdale calls out to them and they join him, standing hand in hand in the darkness. Dimmesdale has begun the road to confession by acknowledging Hester and Pearl and by acting out confession. Now he feels guiltier than ever.
The first scaffold scene takes place at the very beginning of the story. In this particular scene, Hester has moments before walked from the prison door carrying her baby and donning the scarlet letter, which stands for adultery. She must make this procession in front of the entire town. After the march, Hester is forced to stand alone on the scaffold until an hour past noon.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804 (net). He attended Bowdoin College with famous writers such as Horatio Bridge and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (net). In 1850, Hawthorne published The Scarlet Letter (1222). It is considered by many that The Scarlet Letter, “represents the height of Hawthorne’s literary genius. At this time, Boston was the center of a very Puritan society. Throughout the novel Hawthorne uses many symbols. For example, one prominent symbol is the scaffold. During this period in time, the scaffold was used for public humiliation. Those who had committed either a crime or a sin were forced to stand upon it in front of everybody in the town, as a form of confession or public recognition of one’s sin. In The Scarlet Letter, the scaffold not only represents the act of confessing but it also can be seen as a symbol of the stern, inflexible doctrine of the Puritan faith. The Scarlet Letter is centered on the three scaffold scenes, which unite the work, beginning, middle, and end. Hawthorne uses these scenes to aid in his development of the main characters, Hester Pryne, the Reverend Mr. Dimmsdale, and to a lesser degree, Roger Chillingsworth.
He explains that the scaffold that Hester is sentenced to stand upon as punishment is meant to be a comparison to the famous weapon in the French Revolution, the guillotine. Reynolds points out that it was custom in Puritan New England to refer to such places as to where Hester stood as the gallows, not scaffolds. “[…] the central setting of the novel, the scaffold, is, I believe, an historical inaccuracy intentionally used by Hawthorne to develop the theme of revolution” (619). Here he is saying that Hawthorne purposely misused the term in order to spur up themes of revolution. Although he fails to mention Hawthorne’s motive in doing so, it does credibly show the reader that there are possible and deliberate connections made between the French Revolution and The Scarlet
The scarlet letter was stitched onto the chest of every woman who commit adultery and was caught. It was like a warning to other woman not to commit adultery and it was a way to punish those who did. The scarlet colour of the letter represented blood and sin while the “A” stood for “adulteress” because, that’s what the woman was now titled and it was her new identity. The letter “A” was also a symbol of guilt and shame. Dimmesdale may not have had to wear a scarlet letter on his chest or raise Pearl but he did have to deal with the guilt and shame every time he saw a scarlet letter. For example, when he passed, Hester in the street and saw the big, bright symbol stitched to her chest. Or when the meteor traced across the sky, making a letter “A” for him to see and interpret as a symbol of his sins. "No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true"(224) and he became so overwhelmed he burned an “A” into his own chest. The scarlet letter was an important symbol to the storyline of the Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. It held many significant meanings that the reader learns as they did deeper into the novel and use their imagination. The scarlet letter was not only a symbol of adultery but also a symbol of power and of
The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in the sixteen hundreds. Hester Prynne is accused of committing adultery in her small puritan settlement but little does the town know that the father is in fact Reverend Dismmesdale. Having sent his wife ahead of him two years before hand, Hester stops her husband in the crowd as she is standing accused on the scaffolding. Hester is given a punishment in the hopes of making her ashamed; however, she turns the mockery into amazement by making the scarlet A into a beautiful piece of patch work. Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is on the hunt from at that point to find out the child’s father but not even Pearl herself knows. The Scarlet Letter showed how early Americans concentrated their beliefs of church and home in their daily lives. Nathaniel Hawthorne words reflect the flaws in American society during the Puritan settlement. This was also the era of the Salam Witch Trials which Hawthorne’s father played a part in. The central idea reflects that suffering comes from sinning. The Scarlet Letter was the stepping stones that paved future American novels to become so successful.
As soon as Hester stands on the stocks with Pearl for a day without him, Dimmesdale becomes forever haunted from his guilty conscience. He self-inflicts a great deal of harm upon himself both physically and mentally. “And thus, while standing on the scaffold, in this vain show of expiation, Mr. Dimmesdale was overcome with a great horror of mind, as if the universe were gazing at a scarlet token on his naked breast, right over his heart. On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain. Without any effort of his will, or power to restrain himself, he shrieked aloud; an outcry that went pealing through the night, and was beaten back from one house to another, and reverberated from the hills in the background; as if a company of devils detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound, and were bandying it to and fro” (Hawthorne 128). Dimmesdale comes close to confession many times, but cowardice and self-preservation come into play, affecting his decision. He is unable to summon the power to confess, but instead tortures himself and engraves an “A” by his heart. He quickly realizes that he will not survive long in his current situation.
The Scarlet Letter is a blend of realism, symbolism, and allegory. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses historical settings for this fictional novel and even gives historical background information for the inspiration of the story of Hester Prynne in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, ‘The Custom-House’. The psychological exploration of the characters and the author’s use of realistic dialogue only add to the realism of the novel. The most obvious symbol of the novel is the actual scarlet letter ‘A’ that Hester wears on her chest every day, but Hawthorne also uses Hester’s daughter Pearl and their surroundings as symbols as well. Allegory is present as well in The Scarlet Letter and is created through the character types of several characters in the novel.