The Scaffold in the beginning of the book is represented as a place of shame and retribution for transgressors. Hester happens to be standing on the scaffold for she has committed a crime that could not be forgiven by the Puritan society. Hawthorne says that “Meagre indeed and cold was the sympathy that a transgressor might look for from such bystanders.” In this passage he says that those who stand on the scaffold are often being humiliated and disgraced by the people that are surrounding them. The fact that Dimmesdale watching Hester as she is standing on the scaffold and after a while asking her to tell to the world with whom she had commi

tted the crime with, symbolizes to the reader that it was merely an effort to urge a confession from Hester which he knew she would never make, and which he could not find the courage to make for himself. So, in the beginning of the book the Scaffold symbolizes to the reader that it is a place of retribution for the transgressors and also the punishment is a harsh and unforgiving treatment.

When the Scaffold reappears at the end of the book, it takes a dramatic change in its meaning. Dimmesdale takes Hester and Pearl to the Scaffold and reveals to the crowd, his long lasted secret. Dimmesdale said “ye, that have loved me!-ye, that have deemed me holy!-behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!-at last!-I stand upon the spot where seven years since, I should have stood; here with this women,” In this passage Dimmesdale meant that he disappointed the people who had loved him and the one’s who had thought of him as a holy man. He also said that he should have been standing in the Scaffold with Hester since s

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