The Somber Scaffold Scenes
The Puritans regarded education highly and founded Harvard university, the oldest university in the country in 1636. At Harvard, some men studied to become ministers, like Reverend Dimmesdale did. The three scaffold scenes are the key recurring events in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. They give structure to the book by consisting of the setting, exposition, conflict, rising action, and climax. The first scaffold scene is Hester Prynne’s ignominy, the second scaffold scene is in the middle of the night with Reverend Dimmesdale standing on the scaffold out of guilt with Hester and Pearl, and the third scaffold scene is when Dimmesdale confesses to adultery and dies after confessing. The scaffold scenes show how the father of Pearl, Dimmesdale, progresses in the truth and guilt. The settings, positions of the characters on the scaffold, and reason for being on the scaffold all show how the four major characters, Hester Prynne, Pearl, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, are affected by the sin of adultery.
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The market-place contains a “scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place” (Hawthorne 52) and stands “nearly beneath the eaves of Boston’s earliest church” (52).
The second scaffold scene structures the book by being the rising action. It shows how Dimmesdale feels remorse for his sin and how “it was his genuine impulse to adore the truth” (130). It was a way to acknowledge his sin and one knows through all the hints that Dimmesdale is the concomitant adulterer.
The third scaffold scene is the climax of The Scarlet Letter and is followed by falling action and resolution. It’s the climax because Dimmesdale finally confesses to adultery then