One night Dimmesdale mounts the same scaffold upon which Hester was publicly shamed. He even starves and whips himself as punishment. Dimmesdale's guilt for committing and concealing adultery causes him profound emotional suffering. Under Chillingworth's cruel care, Dimmesdale's health deteriorates. Chillingworth decides to torment and expose Dimmesdale. When he discovers that Dimmesdale has carved a mark over his heart that resembles Hester's scarlet letter, Chillingworth realizes that Dimmesdale is Hester's lover. Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale to care for him full-time and begins to suspect a connection between Dimmesdale's heart ailment and Hester's crime. One of his patients is Dimmesdale, who has fallen ill with heart trouble. Meanwhile, Chillingworth is working in Boston as a physician, though he has no formal medical training. Hester refuses to tell Pearl what the scarlet letter signifies, and Pearl becomes obsessed with the letter. She makes a living as a seamstress, though the people who employ her still shun her. Hester is let out of prison and moves to the outskirts of Boston, near the forest. Chillingworth poses as a doctor to get inside the prison to speak with Hester, and there forces her to promise never to reveal that he's her husband. Chillingworth predicts the unknown man will be found out, but when the beloved local Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commands Hester to reveal the man's name, she refuses and is sent back to her prison cell. After two years she fell into sin, committing the adultery that resulted in her baby and the scarlet "A" on her breast. Chillingworth pretends not to know Hester, and learns her story from a man in the crowd: she was married to an English scholar who was supposed to follow her to Boston but never showed up. While on the scaffold, Hester is terrified to recognize her estranged husband, Chillingworth, in the crowd. A crowd waits expectantly as Hester is forced to climb up a scaffold to endure public shame for her sin. A bright red "A" is embroidered on her chest. The story begins as Hester Prynne, the novel's protagonist, is led out of a prison carrying an infant, named Pearl, in her arms. The novel is set in seventeenth-century Boston, a city governed by strict Puritan law. While working at the Salem Custom House (a tax collection agency), the narrator discovered in the attic a manuscript accompanied by a beautiful scarlet letter "A." After the narrator lost his job, he decided to develop the story told in the manuscript into a novel.
#Scaffold scarlet letter free
Although one could say that he dies in shame in the eyes of the townspeople, because of his willful public confession, he is actually given a gracious acceptance into Heaven, where he will live with eternal happiness and completely free of any torment or anguish.The Scarlet Letter begins with a prelude in which an unnamed narrator explains the novel's origin. Finally, in the third scaffold scene, he is publicly and humbly repentant for his sin, liberating not only himself, but also Hester and Pearl. In the first scaffold scene, he is Hester’s two-faced accuser in the second scaffold scene, he displays unbearable bodily and psychological pain. Through the three scaffold scenes, Nathaniel Hawthorne shows the increasing mental and physical pain the Reverend Dimmesdale experienced by trying to hide his sin from the townspeople and God Himself. He then dies, knowing that he will be warmly welcomed into God’s Heavenly Kingdom.
This is the only moment of pride for Dimmesdale throughout the entire book. At this moment, Dimmesdale confesses to the whole town, pronouncing his guilt but yet, at the same time, was able to salvage his soul.ĭimmesdale is finally able to free himself of all anguish and die with an open conscience. As he nears the scaffold, he calls for Hester and Pearl to help him up the stairs and asks them once again to stand beside him. Immediately after his Election Day sermon, which makes him even more popular among the townspeople, Dimmesdale, leads the procession of people towards the town hall for a banquet.
Pearl then asks Dimmesdale if he would stand with them at noontide the next day and he refuses, saying that instead, they will stand together on the great Judgement Day.ĭuring the third and final scaffold scene, Dimmesdale is finally seen as humbly repentant for his and Hester’s sin. There, at Dimmesdale’s request, that they join him on the scaffold where they stand in the darkness, holding each other. Hester and Pearl hear his crying as they are on their way home and go to him. He cries out in physical and mental pain. During the middle of the night, while the townspeople are all asleep, Dimmesdale makes his way to the scaffold, holding a silent vigil.
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