Nathaniel Hawthorne, one of the first great American writers and author of The Scarlet Letter, is credited with saying that “families are always rising and falling in America.” He is saying that families have ups and downs all throughout their lives. This quote applies to The Scarlet Letter on a smaller scale in the sense that people are always rising and falling in Puritan Society. The rises and falls are often shaped by outside influences and can be internalized. Dimmesdale, for instance, faces many falls, not by the public, but by his own emotions. The iron framework that encompases Dimmesdale as a result of his religious affiliation in the town. This iron framework, a set of rules that he follows and conforms himself to, shapes his whole