The scaffold’s first use is as the site of Hester Prynne’s public humiliation. As an adulterer, she could by law have been killed, or have “felt the brand of a hot iron” (44) on her forehead. The town leaders mercifully give her a lesser punishment. In Puritan society, harsh punishments for Old Testament crimes were meant to

The last of the scenes on the scaffold is the most emotionally charged. The scaffold is the appropriate symbolic place for Dimmesdale to find closure. On election day, Dimmesdale breaks down after giving a speech on the scaffold. He calls to Hester “with a piercing earnestness” (230) to support him on the scaffold. The people recognize that “some deep life matter-which, if full of sin, was full of…repentance likewise-was now to be laid open to them” (232). Dimmesdale, relying on Hester for strength, passionately lays open his sin to the town, righting the wrong that he should have dealt with seven years earlier. Unlike Hester, Dimmesdale has no chance to recover, since so much precious time has been lost and he has weakened so much. His chosen path led of deceit leads to his destruction, in stark contrast to Hester’s positive development over the same time period. On the scaffold, Dimmesdale pays the ultimate price for his dishonesty: his life.

The scaffold provides a backdrop for events that prove the consequences of two paths in life, honesty and penitence (and ultimately survival) versus hidden guilt and destruction. The first path, embodied by Hester in the novel, brings challenges that can be overcome and the potential to prosper again. The second path, taken by the Reverend Dimmesdale, brings

Some topics in this essay:
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