Guilt And Shame In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Guilt and shame in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne are demonstrated through a myriad of symbols in addition to the ignominious scarlet letter. One such symbol is the scaffold on which Hester is sentenced to wear her sign of adultery. The scaffold serves to reveal the inner thoughts that many of the major characters keep concealed most prominently, Arthur Dimmesdale. The scaffold presents itself in three scenes throughout the novel, and with each scene, Dimmesdale’s feelings of remorse and guilt are increasingly demonstrated. These scaffold scenes all help to interpret the depth of guilt and pain that tortures Dimmesdale’s soul, and thereby assists Hawthorne’s development of his character.
The first of the scaffold scenes takes place …show more content…
Dimmesdale has tortured himself both emotionally and physically by reliving his sin in his mind, and also by mutilating himself in his private torture room. He hopes that through his self-inflicted pain, he will somehow be able to build up the courage to reveal to his parish his involvement in this unforgivable sin. In this second scene, it is only he who takes to the scaffold. Here, we see beyond his words and torturous actions, and delve into his subconscious thought. Midway through his midnight vigil, the minister, in deafening silence and seclusion from all thoughts but his own, lets out a shrill cry into the night that “... reverberated from the hills in the back-ground; as if a company of devils, detecting so much misery and terror in it, had made a plaything of the sound and were bandying it to and fro” (Hawthorne 135). It is evident that Dimmesdale is pent up with even more guilt than in the initial scaffold scene. This is shown through his sheer frustration that forces him to let out this wail of sorrow, frustration, and self-hatred. This second scaffold scene portrays the minister’s growing inability to cope with his sin, and exemplifies his progressively darker descent into