Who should bear the stigma of sin? Hawthorne’s novel is a story of adultery, social judgment, and moral redemption. Hester cannot hide the consequences of her mistake, so she is exposed to public judgment and forced to wear the scarlet letter. However, it is Dimmesdale’s guilty conscience and struggle to rise above the sin that makes the essence of the narrative. The argument for Dimmesdale as a protagonist lies in the answers to the following questions. Does Dimmesdale’s character change throughout the story? Does he have an antagonist and a helper? Do his actions bring about the climax of the story? Finally, does he solve the problem?

Hawthorne uses character development to show how a person can change. A well-developed character stirs emotions in the reader to make a powerful story. All three main characters, Hester, Chillingworth and Dimmesdale undergo changes that mark the development of events. However, it is Dimmesdale who changes the most. The reason for his change is the sin he commits with Hester. At the beginning of the book, we meet a young and self-confident minister who is trusted

“The physician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bossom, and thrust aside the vestment, that, hitherto, had always coverd it even from the professional eye.[….] after a brief pause, the physician turned away. But, with what a wild look of wonder, joy, and horror!” (153).

Chillingworth however is not Dimmesdale’s enemy. The townspeople, who represent the Puritan society, play a decisive role as the second antagonist in the story. The Puritans were very religious people. They spent their whole life serving God in the hope becoming elected. Adultery was considerated a sin connected with the devil. People connected with the devil were considered as outsiders of society. They were degraded by everybody, starting at a young age children were taught to prevent contact with those sinners,

For a large part of the novel Dimmesdale becomes both, very sick physically and mentally, as a result of Chillingworth’s “friendly care”. Chillingworth, Hester’s wronged husband pretends to be his friend, but he actually plays an evil game with Dimmesdale throughout the whole story. In Chapter 17 Hester tells Dimmesdale about his so-called friend “Thou hast long had such an enemy, and dwellest with him, under the same roof!”(215).After their conversation, Dimmesdale regains his lost power again and decides to confess. Although Dimmesdale is physically very sick at the end of the book, he seems to be quite clear mentally. Hester and Pearl have to help him, get onto the scaffold, to confess his sin. Although Dimmesdale is so sick that he will die shortly after the confession, he speaks “with a voice that rose over them, high, solemn, and majestic” (285). At the end of the novel Dimmesdale is finally able to acknowledge his family in front of the townspeople releasing!

If we can a parallel between the townspeople and the Puritan society as a whole, we can also draw a parallel between that Puritan society and our society today. Adultery is a problem that appears in any human society. Today as always we look down on people who were unfaithful to their wife or husband.

Hawthorne’s novel brings to our moral judgment a questions of human ethics to all times and societies. Whether we are to judge and lay blame on sinners is up to the moral values of each of

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