As Dimmesdale says, 'the daylight of this world shall not see our meeting!' (Hawthorne 139). This is something that he wouldn't do in the truth revealing sunlight. In this darkness Reverend Dimmesdale feels comfortable standing on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl, and acknowledging his sin. and came to a sort of scaffold, at the western extremity of the market-place. This time, though, the scene occurs at night, nearly seven years after the novel's action begins. Come along, Madam Hester, and show your scarlet letter in the marketplace. They illustrate the falseness of a community and individual characters, who all suffer through the novel. The second scaffold scene contains nearly all the same elements. The scaffold scenes are emblematic in 'The Scarlet Letter'. The darkening of Chillingworth's face is not just a sign of his hate for Hester's illicit behavior, but a symbol of the secret of Pearl's father. Her husband Chillingworth, was also affected, as his face 'darkened with some powerful emotion' (Hawthorne 57). With Reverend Dimmesdale watching, the sunlight attempts to illuminate the truth of Hester's affair to all the townspeople. It seems that even nature was against her as Hawthorne says, 'the hot midday sun burning down upon her face, and lighting up its shame' (59, Ch 3). The first scaffold scene takes place in broad daylight with Hester and Pearl standing alone on the scaffold being publically humiliated.

Hawthorne uses the three scaffold scenes and the symbols of light and darkness to signify hidden truths and dark secrets. The steps of the scaffold became the walk of death for many people. During the scaffold scenes the images of light and dark are used often. The scaffold had wooden steps leading on to it. Two of these symbols are light and dark, but the importance of these symbols is often overlooked. The three scaffold scenes in The Scarlet Letter are integral to the structure and unity of the narrative. Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlett Letter is a novel that is overflowing with powerful imagery. In Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, the scaffold is a topographic point of both humiliation and rapprochement. The Scarlet Letter: Symbolism of Light and Darkness in the Scaffold Scenes

Scaffold scarlet letter