Denial and Acceptance: The Divergent Roads of The Scarlet Le

shattered mom’s favorite glass vase while she was out, admitting that the baseball was

ours would certainly grant us a month in our room. We would often breakdown under the

heavy burden of guilt, however, and we would realize the relative ease of time in our

room. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne similarly develops the concepts of guilt

and the freedom gained by confession. In the first of three distinct scaffold scenes, Hester

Prynne stands alone under direct scrutiny from the public. By the second of such scenes,

the story is in the middle of its development, and the guilt of Arthur Dimmesdale has

fully developed. Though he is unable to confess to the townspeople, he tries to soothe

some of his inner pain by revealing his secret to the night. It is not until the books

conclusion, however, that Dimmesdale finds peace through the full confession of his sins

to the crowd. Examining Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth in

the context of the scaffold scenes, shows that honesty overcomes deception.

The first scaffold scene establishes the root for all further development of the

born with their discovery of her adultery: “When this young woman—the mother of this

child—stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp

In the final scaffold scene, the story comes to a close. Dimmesdale’s final efforts are put into his well-awaited confession, and this action effects all that are around him. As the Reverend mounts the platform, Chillingworth storms through the crowd, and begs him to hold back. We well understand at this point in the story that the physician has grown dependent on the satisfaction he gains from Dimmesdale’s suffering. Chillingworth states, “…there was no one place so secret—no high place nor lowly place where though couldst have escaped me—save on this very scaffold!” (231). A short time after the confession, we later learn, Chillingworth’s “…strength and energy—all his vital and intellectual force—seemed at once to desert him; insomuch a way that he positively withered up, shriveled away and, and almost vanished from mortal sight…” (237). Chillingworth is based in deception, and thus has no hope for happiness. While he clearly suffers from the confession, Dimmesdale, on the other hand, gains nothing but relief from it. Just after he divulged his secret, the narrator explains his emotion, “…the minister stood, with a flush of triumph in his face, as one who, in the crisis of acutest pain, had won a victory” (233). By being truthful with the town and with himself, the reverend is able to overcome the pain that deception caused him. As he has finally found peace, he falls to the ground and awaits his death. In the meantime, Hester stands by his side, and embraces her lover as she held her baby in the very first scaffold scene: “Hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom” (233). By the literal connection of Dimmesdale’s head with the scarlet letter, the two are finally united in public under the common bond of their sin. Pearl, more importantly, is finally released from her role as the reminder of her mother’s affair. At her father’s request, she “kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies, and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow…” (233). Although she would not kiss him in the f

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