Here, the reader sees a nearly mad man, too weak to reveal himself for what he really was, but too pious to otherwise ignore it. Late one night, Dimmesdale could have been seen on the scaffold, looking for some peace from the guilt tormenting his mind.His penitence, however, lacked an audience. Thereafter, he would pledge to avenge himself of the man that had partnered in wronging him. He seems an old, disappointed man, finding that the one he had waited three years to join had, during that time, left him for another. He did not, at that time, have the strength or the will to do so himself, and was begging Hester to reveal him for what he was.Among the crowd, Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s wronged husband, adds his voice to the multitude in demanding that Hester reveal her secret. Nearby, stood Arthur Dimmesdale, asking his secret lover to reveal the name of the father of that child. Hester Prynne, clutching both the living and the imposed () of her sin to her breast, is seen atop the scaffold, sternly looked on by all, but without her lover.She stood there in quiet defiance, refusing to reveal to the multitude before her who the father of her child was, and in this the reader sees a picture of a woman scorned and fearing for the life of herself and her child, but bearing the scrutiny of all with a calm defiance. At each scene, the reader comes to understand something of the main characters and glimpses how that sin represented by the scarlet “A” has affected them. The scaffold played an important part in identifying the characters of the Scarlet Letter throughout the novel.
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