Ironically, the more his body declines from the effects of his guilt, the more popular he becomes with the public. Deep in the night he goes to the scaffold because he can’t live with his guilt, with his sin. He wants to confess his sin but there is no one to hear him. “He felt his limbs growing stiff with the unaccustomed chilliness of the night, and doubted whether he should be able to descend the steps to the scaffold.”(139) His actions are neither logical nor rational. “Whom, but the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne had stood! Carried away by the grotesque horror of this picture, the minister, unawares, and to his own infinite alarm, burst into a great peal of laughter.”(139/140) That night he is odd; he can’t control himself. “The minister well knew-subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was!- the light in which his vague confession would be viewed.” It is a vain show of remorse but it shows readers his internal suffering. His guilt causes his hallucinations. At the time he is on the scaffold, Hester and Pearl return from the Governor Winthrop’s deathbed. They join Dimmesdale and all three connect their hands together and form an “electric chain.” In the moment a mystical A gleams in the sky. Finally, Chillingworth, who watches them, takes Dimmesdale home.
The last scaffold scene shows Dimmesdale redemption of his guilt. On the Election Day Dimmesdale appears so strong and vital that Pearl does not recognize him. He gives a speech, which is the most brilliant and triumphal moment of his life: all the people surrounding him are overwhelmed. Suddenly he collapses. The Reverend Mr. Wilson tries to help Dimmesdale but he pushes him away and calls Hester and Pearl to join him. The crowd watches in astonishment as the minister, leaning on Hester and holding Pearl’s hand, climbs the scaffold steps. They act as a unit.
“‘Hester Prynne,’ cried he, with a piercing earnestness, ‘in the name of Him, so terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do what –for my own heavy sin and miserable agony – I withheld myself from doing seven years ago, come hither now and twine thy strength about me! Thy strength, Hester; but let it be guided by the will which God hath granted me! Come, Hester, come! Support me up yonder scaffold!’”(230)
Dimmesdale tells Hester he is dying and must reveal his secret. “‘Let me now do the will which he hath made plain before my sigh. For, Hester, I am a dying man.