treatment of her. He notes of Hester’s fellows citizens, “Men had marked this women’s sin by a Scarlet Letter, whish had such potent and disastrous efficacy
that knoe human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself “ ironically justaposted against the Purintan’s sentence that Hester wear the Scarlet
Letter A is “God, [who] as a direct consequence of the sin which man this punished, had given her a lovely child,… to be finally a blessed soul in heaven”
the comparison between the community’s Puritan’s and God’s responses to Hester’s extramarital affair is dramatic.
4.2.3 The Minister’s Vigil Summary
After living the house, Dimmesdale walks to the scaffold where seven years earlier, Heaster Prynne stood waering hen sign of shame and holding Pearl.
Now in the damp, cool air of the cloudy May night, Dimmesdale mounts the steps while the town sleeps. Realizing the mockery of his being able to stand there now,
safe and unseen, where he should have stood seven years ago before the townspeople, Dimmesdale is overcome by a self-hatred so terrible that it causes
him to cry aloud into the night. Hester and Pearl, who are returning from Governor Winthrop’s deathbed,
mount the scaffold, and the three of them stand hand-in-hand, Hester and Dimmesdale linked by Pearl. Twice, Pearl ask Dimmesdale if he will stand there
with them at noon the next day : the minister says he will stan there with them on “the great jugdement.” As he speaks, a strange light in the sky illuminates the
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scaffold and its surroundings. Looking up Dimmesdale seems to see in the sky a dull red light in the shape of immense letter A. At the same istant, Dimmesdale is
aware that Pearl is pointing toward Roger Chillingworth who stands nearby, grimly smiling up at the three people on the scaffold. Over come with terror,
Dimmesdale ask Hester about the true identity of Chillingworth. Remembering her promise to Chillingworth, Hester remains silent.
After next morning’s sermon, the sexton starlet the minister by returning one of his gloves, which was found on the scaffold. “Satan dropped it there,I take
it, intending a scurrilous jest against your reference.” the sexton also ask about the great red letter A that appeared in the sky the past night.
Analysis This chapter , the second of three crucial scaffold scenes, appears exactly
in the middle of the novel. Again, Hawthorne gathers all of his major characters in one place – this time in a chapter so foreboding, so convincing in its psychology,
and so rich in its symbolism that it is unquestionably one of the most powerful in the novel.
In his description of Dimmesdale’s action while alone on the scaffold, Hawthorne demonstrates his mastery of psychological realism. The sudden
changes in moodthat take placein the minister’s tired mind, the self – condemnation for his cowardice, the near – insanity of his scream, and his impulse
to speak to Mr.Wilson all are developed convincingly. The first scaffold scene took place during the noon hours and concerntrated on Hester’s guild and
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punishment. This second scene, occurring at the midnight hour, puts both “sinners” o the scaffold and concentrates on Dimmesdale’s guild and punishment.
All the major characters of the first scene are again present . The town, although, sleeps or is other wise unaware of the action.
Previously we have seen Dimmesdale’s conscious mind attempting to reason through the problem of his concealed guild. In contrast, in this chapter, we
see the tortured workings of his sbusconcious mind, which is the real source of his algony. When Dimmesdale is forced by Pearl’s repeated question to bring the
issue in to the open his fear of confession still dominates his subcioncous desire to confess. Just as the town was a sleep earlier and there was “no peril of discovery”
, now he backs off once again. His to refusals to publicly acknowledge his relationship with Hesterand Pearl suggest, perhaps, Pieter’s first to denials of
Christ. Hawthorne’s flair for gothic details is demonstrated I the appearance of a
spectacular, weird like and the startling reflation of the diabolical Roger Chillingworth, who is standing near the scaffold. However although about have
the effect of supernatural occurances. Hawthorne is careful to give a natural explanation for each them. The light, Hawthorne says , “was doubtlesscaused by
one of those meteors , which denied – whatcher may so often observe burning out to waste.
Of course , the meteors seemed to those who saw it ”nothing was more commond in those days then to interprate all meteoric appearances … as so many revelation
from a supernatural source” and the question of wheter the ominous red A
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appeared at all is ambiguous although sexton refers to the letter, Hawthorne suggest that the A may have appeared only in Dimmesdale’s imagination: “We
impute it … solely to the disease in his own eyes and heart, that the minister, looking upward to the zenith, beheld there the appearance of an immense letter”
Hawthorne also indicates that the meaning is in the mind of an be holder. The sexton sees it as an A for angel because Governoor Winthroph had recently
become an angel similarly Chillingworth appearance although a suggest his knowledge of Dimmesdale where the books is logically explained by his having
attended the dying Governor Winthrop. As in the first scaffold seems this chapter abounds in both major and minor
symbols: the scaffold it self : Dimmesdale standing on it : the three potential observers representing Church, State and the World of Evil : the “electric chain “
of Hester , Pearl, and Dimmesdale : Pearl’s appeal to Dimmesdale : the revealing light from the heaven : and the variation on the letter A.
4.3 The Pastor and His Parishioner Summary
