Scaffold Scenes In The Scarlet Letter Essay

One night Pearl asks her unaccepting father, Dimmesdale, to “stand [t]here on the scaffold with [her and her] mother ”(230). Pearl wants the beloved minister to own up to his sin and show the rest of the townsfolk his participation in the sin. However, the mortified priest responds, “[nay]; not so, my little Pearl”(230). Denying Pearl’s request accurately represents one way Dimmesdale tries to avoid the ignominy his moral consequence of sin. Even though Dimmesdale gets to chose whether he stands on the scaffold or not, Hester did not have this choice in the beginning of the novel. One of Hester’s immediate punishments was to stand on the scaffold holding her baby with the scarlet letter “A” on her clothing in front of “a thousand relenting eyes” (54). Hester felt shame when she had to show the rest of the town the ways her sin affected

The scaffold shows how the punishment imposed on us by others may not be as destructive as the guilt we impose on ourselves. When Hester was standing on the scaffold she is not thinking about being punished. She is having flashbacks to earlier times and feeling guilty for what she had done. The scaffold is a platform used for redemption and a symbol of the harsh Puritan code.

The scaffold appears early in the when Hester Prynne is forced to climb up to the scaffold where her punishment will be carried out. The mother and child are gawked at and humiliated, as they are forced to stand there on display for the town. Hawthorne writes:

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter, the author uses three scaffold scenes to mark the development of Hester Prynne. The image of Hester atop the scaffolding is a metaphor for her forced solitude; for her banishment from society; and for the futility of her punishment. In the first scene, Hawthorne uses the scaffold to explain how Hester can not believe that the “A'; and the baby are real. In the second scaffold scene, Hawthorne tries to convey to the reader that Hester has fully repented for her sin, however this is not true. In the final scaffold scene, Hester does not yet fully repent for her sin because her love for Dimmesdale is still strong. Through Hester, Hawthorne is trying to communicate to the

In contrast to the first scaffold scene, the second one happened during the night, completely unseen by the other villagers. Again, we see Dimmesdale and Hester (and Pearl), but this time, the lovers appeared to be both on the platform of shame. In this passage, Dimmesdale finally decided to act upon his guilt since he “had been driven hither (to the scaffold) by the impulse that Remorse which dogged him everywhere” (132-133). This scene symbolizes a moment of great insight for the minister because he started to understand a way to repent himself. As Dimmesdale touched his little girl’s hand, he experienced “[an]other life than his own, pouring like a torrent into his heart and hurrying through all his veins, as if the mother and the child were communicating their vital warmth to his half-torpid system” (137). The miserable sinner, who lived in utter darkness and despair for such a long time, at last began to grasp his responsibility towards Hester and Pearl and his role in the redemption of all three characters. However, Dimmesdale’s insight was not complete because he was still bounded with fear. When Pearl asked him to expose his sin to the public and admit her as his legitimate child, his courage

The first scene worthy of being considered one of the most important is where it all begins; Hester’s journey to the scaffold and her time spent there with her infant child in her arms. This is where the main protagonist is being introduced. When being described, she “was tall, with a figure of perfect elegance on a

One night he drags himself up the scaffold steps and screams, hoping someone will find him. “It is done! The whole town will awake and hurry forth and find me here” (Hawthorne 99)! Dimmesdale wants to be found out. What makes him cowardly is the fact that he will night outright confess, but still complains about his internal wounds. As he stands on the scaffold Hester and her daughter, Pearl, walk by on their way home when Dimmesdale stops them and asks them to join him, “Come up hither, Hester, thou and Little Pearl… and we will stand all together” (Hawthorne 101). Dimmesdale, though he’s trying to understand what Hester felt, still refuses to stand there with them in the daylight. Dimmesdale is still just as fainthearted as

In the first scaffold scene Hester Prynne is depicted standing alone while clutching her baby. She has been sentenced to the scaffold for three hours to face public condemnation. In the Puritan society, where this novel is set, public shame is a source of entertainment. On this occasion the townspeople are present to watch the judgment of Hester.

Dimmesdale will not even be seen in public with Hester and Pearl. He wants to be able to be with his daughter and the love of his life but then people would know that he committed adultery with Hester. Pearl asks, “Wilt thou stand here with Mother and me, tomorrow noontide?” to only hear, “Not so, my child.” from Dimmesdale in return (Hawthorne page 144). Dimmesdale not being able to be with whom he loves is is a struggle.

Abandoning Hester and her illegitimate daughter Pearl also augmented his problems. Forcing Hester to go and find work around town, an obviously hard task for a single parent.  He also abandons them emotionally and physically. He is rarely there when Hester and Pearl needed him.  Innocent little Pearl wonders why Dimmesdale is so afraid of public displays of affection, yet when they are alone, he takes notice of her and Hester. Talking to him, Pearl asks  "Wilt thou stand here with Mother and me, tomorrow noontide? (149),” a question whose answer is unclear for Pearl. In fact, the only way Hester and Pearl receive any kind of support from Dimmesdale is when Hester threatens to tell the truth about his sins.

As the book opens, Hester is brought forth from the jail and walked to the scaffold. For the first time being seen in public named an adulterer, Hester shies from the public as they mock her. However, "She never battled with the public, but submitted uncomplainingly to its worst usage; she made no claim upon it, in requital for what she suffered; she did not weight upon its sympathies." (Hawthorne 140). Soon, it did not matter what other people thought of Hester because of her sin. She chose not to live with the humiliation, but she did have to live with herself.

Even though it is clear that Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty, he never actually wanted to admit that he had sinned. The fact that he intended to confess his sin for the final time during the night shows that he does not want the people to know, but just wants to clear his conscience by confessing to himself. While Dimmesdale was on the scaffold, Reverend Wilson walked by and Dimmesdale apparently said hello but was in such

In the third scaffold scene, Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale reunite together on the scaffold. As others recognize who her secret lover is, the community perceives Hester as a sympathetic figure. When Hester is standing with Dimmesdale on the scaffold, he confesses his immoral actions and shows his version of the scarlet letter on his chest. After seven years the Reverend proclaims, “In the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what---for my own heavy sin and miserable agony---I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me!” (226).

During the first scaffold scene, Hester is physically described as a tall young women with a "figure of perfect elegance on a large scale," with "dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it three off the sunshine with a gleam" (Hawthorne 37). Hester Prynne is so physically stunning that "her beauty shone out, and made a halo of misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped" (37). Fast forwarding to her appearance after seven years of punishment for her sin, it is shown that her hair is hidden under a cap and her beauty and warmth are no longer. Her physically stunning persona is buried under the burden of the elaborate scarlet letter planted on her chest. When the Scarlett letter and cap are removed, Hester Prynne becomes the radiant beauty that she was seven years before.

The harsh townspeople force her up on the scaffold to be humiliated in front of the whole town. Not only is she sent up on the scaffold with her sin revealed by the “A” for everyone to see, Hester becomes an example of what a woman should not come to be. The author is talking about Hesters experience on the scaffold and her pregnancy, “Throughout them all, giving up her individuality, she would become the general symbol at which the preacher and moralist might point, and in which they might vivify and embody their images of woman's frailty and sinful passion”(32). Hester looses her individuality and is labeled by the townspeople and known for the Scarlet Letter. Further, the townspeople singled her out as an alien or outcast of the town forcing her to live an abnormal live. She was ridiculed and known for her one sin, unable to have acceptance back into society. Although the townspeople feel as if Hester has brought sin upon there lives, she clearly have not harmed any of the townspeople physically, and they have no grounds to punish Hester. The cause of the townspeople's harsh disciplinary acts on Hester originates from a strict, unrealistic standards of puritan society and the zero tolerance of any ungodly behavior observed in the town. Due to the absence of proper justice, Hester's sentencing is left up to the harsh townspeople in which they show no mercy or