As a main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale of ‘The Scarlet Letter’, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale is confronted with circumstances both in and out of his control, that lead to his demise. Even though it can be argued that Reverend Dimmesdale is a tragic hero, he lacks the strength and underlying goodness essential for him to fulfill this role. With such discrepancies it is easier for me to argue that the Reverend is not the tragic hero that some believe.

Arthur Dimmesdale, a minister, lives his life under the watchful yet admiring eye of the townspeople of Boston and, as a result, becomes a slave to the public opinion. His sin against Hester Prynne and Pearl is that he will not acknowledge them as his lover and daughter in the daylight. In the Puritan religion any one sin could be punished severely, whether it is a minor infraction or an offense condemnable by death. He keeps his dreadful secret from all those under his care in the church for seven years for fear that he will lose their love and they will not forgive him. He is too weak to admit his sins openly and in their entirety A person at this point in time could not speak out or show any emotion lest they were

His inward trouble drove him more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome, than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred. In Reverend Dimmesdale's secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge. Hawthorne spoke about Reverend Dimmesdale’s bloody scourge in his closet, and how he beat himself with it. Hawthorne seemed to suggest that Reverend Dimmesdale’s “real existence on [earth] was the anguish of his inmost soul.” Oftentimes, this Protestant and Puritan divine had plied it on his own shoulders; laughing bitterly at himself all the while...It was his custom, too, as it had been that of many other pious Puritans, to fast,--not, however, like them, in order to purify the body and render it the fitter medium of celestial illumination,--but rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance. He kept vigils, likewise, night after night, and sometimes in utter darkness; sometimes with a glimmering lamp; and sometimes, viewing his own face in a looking glass, by the most powerful light which he could throw upon it. He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify, himself. (127)

Hawthorne uses the scaffold as a tool through which he demonstrates the public revelation of one’s sins. Public penitence upon the scaffold was the only way society would acknowledge, and later forgive one for their sins. It is the first step on the long road to acceptance back into the strict, Puritan society. Although the scaffold serves as a forum for public revelation and acceptance, it provides a sanctuary of personal truth as well. Upon its framework, a person may act freely as they wish, letting their desires and wishes become a reality. They are not shackled by the pressures of their lifestyle, and therefore may truly be themselves. In the second scaffold scene, Reverend Dimmesdale climbs the wooden steps and is joined by Hester Prynne and the product of their sin, Pearl. Putting aside their daily facades, they join hands to form an “electric chain.” As “they stood in the noon of that strange and solemn splendor, as if it were the light that is to reveal all secrets, and the daybreak that shall unite all who belong to one another” (142), they could finally be together, as one. They let their inner-truths, that could not be displayed anywhere but on the scaffold, be revealed to themselves, as well as to each other. Each one of them carried some sort of sin, preventing them from achieving their ultimate goal- to be together. In addition, it is upon the scaffold that Pearl realizes the intimate bond between herself and Reverend Dimmesdale. This personal revelation of truth could not have been uncovered with the absence of the scaffold. Ultimately, the scaffold not only revealed the truth without, but also within.

The final aspect of a tragic hero, however, is the one that fits Reverend Dimmesdale least. To truly be a tragic hero, Reverend Dimmesdale would have to have been a great and respectable man to begin with. This is not the case. Reverend Dimmesdale must have been a weak, dependent man before he ever entangled his life with Hester Prynne's. Such weakness is not born overnight, but instead is usually drawn out after trials and tribulations like Reverend Dimmesdale’s. Instead of overcoming his weakness, Reverend Dimmesdale lives as a sinner, allowing Hester Prynne to be the strong and moral one for them both. Even in death, she is the supporting one, he the weak one. Even as Hawthorne describes him, Reverend Dimmesdale is childlike and ill-suited to his environment: "Notwithstanding his high gifts and scholar-like attainments, there was an air about this young minister,--an apprehensive, a startled, a half-frightened look--as of a being who felt himself quite astray and at a loss in the pathway of human existence, and could only be at ease in some seclusion of his own."(58) This is hardly

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