The Puritan Community In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the setting to better establish the characters personalities and understand their status in the Puritan community. The setting specifically enhanced some of the characters more than others, Pearl along with her mother, Hester and her father, Dimmesdale saw this enrichment which subsequently allowed us to understand their struggles as individuals and as a family. The scaffold was a key part of character development from start to end, initially just involving Hester and Pearl as a baby but eventually after a long stretch of time Dimmesdale came out of hiding and admitted to his sins on the same scaffold. Pearl was viewed as a product of sin and was rejected by the Puritan town folk, but

The first scaffold scene was “when the young woman - the mother of this child - stood fully revealed before the crowd” (Hawthorne 50), this was Hester and Pearl’s first reveal to the public. At this moment Hester is viewed as a disgrace to the Puritan faith for sinning and disrespecting her husband by having an affair. Pearl is nothing but a product of sin to the Puritans, there is almost no sympathy exhibited from the crowd of townsmen. Both are in a bad position for the future to come. Meanwhile Dimmesdale watches this scene from a balcony, as he hides the fact that he is the husband and he secretly sinned even though he is supposed to be the purest one in the town. Another

A significant amount of time passes before the next scene with a scaffold, but when it happens the whole family stands together on the scaffold at night and together “the three formed an electric chain” (Hawthorne 134). As they all stand together Pearl asks Dimmesdale, “wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?” (Hawthorne 134), and he says “Nay” (Hawthorne 134), which then sparks curiosity and suspicion in Pearl who Dimmesdale really is and why he is there. For Pearl this is the beginning of a cursios future, especially involving the letter A. While this all occurs there is a meteor shower which causes the letter A to appear in the sky, Hester and Dimmesdale both think it stands for Adultery, which makes them a bit concerned. However the townspeople think it simply means Angle, because of the recent passing of the Governor. Chillingworth soon appears to take Dimmesdale home, and he sees them all standing on the scaffold, this allows him to put the pieces together that Dimmesdale is