since her happy infancy (p65)". The experience of the scaffold has a profound effect on Hester. Living on the border between the town and the forest, she learns new freedom while seeing the conformist repression of the town. Hester sees what the townspeople ignore. She soon believes that because of her punishment on the scaffold and her perpetual reminder of it, the scarlet letter, she sees the sins of the entire townspeople and the hypocrisy of keeping them secret. Thus, her time on the scaffold has made her see the truth of the town and its lies. It is on the scaffold that Hester realizes no matter what she does the reality will not change until the minds and perceptions of the town’s people change.Reverend Dimmesdale has a similar experience on the scaffold. Troubled by his sins and his failure to confess them, the reverend ascends the pillory in the dead of night to "confess" his sins to the world. Even though on one sees him, Dimmesdale feels " . . . all the dread of public exposure [that] had so long been the anguish of his life… nevertheless- he found himself (148)". The scaffold is where Dimmesdale first accepts his sin of adultery. His co-sinner, Hester and their daughter, Pearl, walk by, and the three of them stand on the scaffold together. This is the only safe place, save the outside forest, where the truth is told and accepted. All other times, the illusion is kept up and the secret hid. Pearl remarks to her mother that "In the dark nighttime, he calls us to him . . . on the scaffold yonder . . . But here in the sunny day, among all the people, he knows us not, nor must we know him! (215)". Thus, Reverend Dimmesdale is still committed to the town’s values of ignoring truth and going along with the public perception. The forest is also a location where the truth is not forbidden, but accepted. After Hester’s judgment on the scaffold, she and her daughter Pearl escape there. The trees of the forest, un...
