"In our nature, however, there is a disposition, at once wonderful and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures for his present torture, but mainly for the burning pain after it (84)." What is evident in this quote regarding Hester Prynne, Hawthorne's main protagonist, in The Scarlet Letter is that, although she suffers so much in the opening gallows scene, it is human nature to equip the individual with a defense tool that is at the same time peculiar and compassionate. In Hester's moment of deep grief, her defenses prevented her from realizing how much she was in pain at that moment. Only then will she be forced to face him. The scaffolding scenes in the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, symbolically make the book what it is. Hawthorne's characters symbolically transform the scaffolding from the beginning to the end of the novel. Subsequently, the three scaffold scenes physically deteriorate with an underlying symbolic resonance. Finally, the symbolic use of scaffolding throughout The Scarlet Letter leaves a lasting impression on its readers. The scaffolding gives the reader a deeper sense of how the plot is developing and what the emotional evolution of the characters is. You can see this after finishing the novel and looking back at the three gallows scenes. Hawthorne's characters symbolically transform the scaffolding from the beginning to the end of the novel. The first scaffold scene was about Hester and Pearl's shame. Even though Pearl was very young at the time, you begin to feel that her presence there made Hester's shame more real and painful. At that time in Hester's life she was ashamed of what she had done and the pain was killing her inside. Dimmesdale, Pearl's father, on the other hand felt no pain at that moment compared to what he would eventually feel. Dimmesdale wanted Hester to tell it