From the very beginning, Dimmesdale sets out to deceive the superficial supporters of Puritan Orthodoxy whose need is to see him pious. When we first see Dimmesdale, he is openly exhorting Hester to name her child's father, while, secretly of course, urging her to do just the opposite; already, at the outset, he is a master of doublespeak. His celebrated sermons permit him to confess without taking responsibilities for what he is confessing. His hearers as we are told'' little guessed what deadly purport lurked in his self-condemning words.'' P. 128. And this deception is quit deliberate '' the minister well knew-subtle, but remorseful hypocrite that he was''. P 128.
The problem, of course, is that Parson Dimmesdale succeeds in deceiving above all himself, the thing he is doing is nothing but falsehood. He tells Hester when they finally meet in the forest,
''As concerns the good which I may appear to do. I have no faith in it … not which I'm doing uncertainty, suppression. It must needs be a delusion…I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart at the contrast between what I seem and what I am.'' P 170.
Dimmesdale may dream of strange things and make them look like truth, but he himself cannot believe in their truth. He does not indulge in his forbidden fantasies; he simply represses them, and even as he distinguishes between what he seems and what he is, he becomes hopelessly confused. ''No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.'' P. 191.
Returning from the forest, Dimmesdale imagines that he has finally determined to release ' the inner man' to act on his impulses or instincts as human being, to fling his old self down as Hester has just thrown off her letter and her cap.
Dimmesdale might appear in the climax of the story to have resolved the conflict between the competing realities of inner impulse and outward expression. Following his election sermon, Hester hears a '' low undertone of the complaint of a human heart telling its secrets''. (P 216); he does join Hester and Pearl on the scaffold to confess his sin openly at last.
The Scarlet Letter as a love story:
The Scarlet Letter has been interpreted as a story of sin and sinners.
Hester
Dimmesdale represent the sin of adultery
Pearl
Dimmesdale alone stands for the sin of hypocrisy.
Chillingworth stands for the isolating sin of arrogance and self-consuming revenge.
If one shifts the angels of attention, the novel can be read as a love story; it is a tragedy of the grand passion rather than a tale of sinful passion. Passion is the fixed reality throughout the novel. It becomes clear that the passion of the lovers is entering its most interesting stage when the story opens instead of being over and done with. Hester's marriage is conformity with the traditions is poor and mean compare to her love affair.

These pages were read by the Dr.
P. 48 '' when the young woman appeared…''
P. 54 '' could it be true….had vanished''.
p. 61 ''The Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale…by the same influence''.
P .66 '' The young pastor's voice…the same influence ''.
P .172 P.173
P .174 P.176 important and P.180

 
The passage in page 174 “ They sat down…come”.
In this passage, Hawthorne describes the meeting place of Hester an Dimmesdale. He portrays man’s relation with the place and its role in highlighting and reflecting the inner feelings of the characters. He does that through the syntax used to elicit meanings. Hawthorne relies on the use of nouns and adjectives. There are a lot of concrete nouns in this passage. They refer to the tangible and physical objects: trunk, tree and pathway. However, Hawthorne does not achieve all of his effects out of nouns alone. In order to describe the scene in detail, he needs to be more specific about the objects he depicts, and in order to do this he needs the support of adjectives: ‘mossy’, ‘gloomy’, ’darkening’, ‘fallen’, ‘’ obscure’, ‘solemn’, ‘old’ and sad. Thus, the image of the fallen tree, in the second line, introduces the world of the lovers, a world that is subject to decay and destruction, or a world which is about to fall. The adjectives ‘darkening’, ‘solemn’, ‘obscure’ help to stress the above mentioned image. The image of the “solemn old tree” expresses the relation pd the place to characters denoting their own reality.

The passage in Page 176 “you have been suffering during this seven years”In this passage, Hester, a woman who has explored the path of mind and finally adapted it, she is the feminine voice which exhort the perplexed Dimmesdale. Hawthorne communicates this massage to his readers through the syntax of Hester’s speech. First, Hester’s sentences are tightly-built. In fact, Hester’s preaching needs the use of many verbs in each sentences. The tightly built sentences get their strength from the verbal clauses which Hawthorne uses in this passage. Secondly, the syntax of Hester’s speech relies mainly on the rhetoric of the passage. This is achieved by the use of “thou art”, “thou shalt”, “hast thou”, “why shouldst thou” it is also achieved by the use of imperatives “leave it”, “meddle no one”, “begin all anew”, “be a scholar”, “Preach”, “Write”, “Act”, “Do”. The use of these imperatives refers to a person who has a cleaver vision of life, a person who succeeds in mentioning a sense of balance in life. Hester does not only exhort Dimmesdale, but she also offers him options; her preaching is positive in the sense that it carries glad tidings; the future, success, happiness. The vocabulary of the passage manifests a woman whose love has consumed her. This is the vocabulary of a woman who has worked out the balance between mind and heart.
The passage in page 179.
Hawthorne, in this passage, is portraying the transformation in these two lovers souls. This transformation is made possible once Hester has undergone her feelings of shame. Hawthorne shows the exquisiteness of these new feelings and their influence on Hester. The passage is completely important since it illustrates the removal of the scarlet letter which constitute a turning point in the novel. Thus, newborn feelings overwhelm Hester. In fact, throwing the scarlet letter off and taking off the ‘formal cap’ can be considered two signs implying movement into another realm of being and denoting her own release from shame and ugliness. This freedom is embodied through the portrayal of beauty. Hester’s beauty is seen through the context of the glamour of the place which receives a flood of sunshine; like the title of the chapter. ‘gold’, ‘green’, ‘yellow’, and ‘gray’ are colors which are used by Hawthorne to paint a picture of the place which is transformed into something beautiful and glamorous.

The scaffold scenes are important; at the beginning , middle and end of The Scarlet Letter stand Hawthorne’s three scaffold scenes. Each of the scaffold scenes brings together, in a moment of moral, emotional, and psychological tension, the major characters and forces of the story. Each scene centers the attention in a dramatic manner on the scarlet letter.

The first scaffold scene:
1- It takes place at midday.
2- Hester stands on the scaffold holding her infant. The townspeople stand below and the leaders of community: civil officers, magistrates, and ministers stand above the balcony.
3- The inhabitants of Boston are divided in this scene. This division serves Hawthorne’s purpose characterizing both the official and the people as component parts of this drama.
4- The authority of the leaders is emphasized.
5- Hester seems convinced “that whatever sympathy she might expect lay in the larger and wormer heart of the multitude”.
6- It is the feelings rather than the ideas or perceptions of humanity that are to be trusted.
7- The center of attention in the first scaffold scene is on the nature of sinfulness and guilt.
8- Hawthorne shows the deep ambivalence of Dimmesdale’s position.

 
“ The Custom House” is a frame work.
1- Group A ( Hester standing on the scaffold).
I- The Prison-door.
II- The Market Place.
III- The Recognition.

2- Group B (Hester and Pearl are struggling).
IV- The interview.
V- Hester at her Needle.
VI- Pearl.
VII- Governors’ “Hall”.
VIII- The Elf-Child and the Minister.

3- Group C (Chillingworth progress).
IX- The Leech.
X- The Leech and his Patient.
XI- The Interior for a heart.

4- Group D (Dimmesdale on the scaffold)
XII- The Minister’s Vigil.

5- Group E (Hester and Pearl are rising after Hester’s struggle with the whole community)
XIII- Another View of Hester.
XIV- Hester and the Physician.
XV- Hester and Pearl.

6- Group F (Hester and Dimmesdale rise as Chillingworth fall).
XVI- A Forest Walk.
XVII- The Pastor and the Parishioner.
XVIII- A Flood of Sunshine.
XIX- The Child at the Brook Side.
XX- The Minister in a Maze.

7- Group G (Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale on the scaffold)
XXI- The New England Holyday.
XXII- The Procession.
XXIII- The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter.

8- Group H (framework).
XXIV- Conclusion .

One in the many motifs in The Scarlet Letter, none is powerful as the scarlet letter itself. Functionally, the letter is a moral symbol, but artistically it is a glorious red spot. Hawthorne cleverly handles it . he never tells us in so many words what the “A” stands for, but there is no doubt in our minds that it symbolizes something very important. It is first referred to in chapter II as the mark, a “certain taken” and finally as “the letter ‘A”. then it is called in capital letters, “THE SCARLET LETTER”, and then it is called “the red letter”, “the scarlet letter” and the letter “A”. Since it appears in chapter II, it has been mentioned for nine times, and 150 time throughout the rest of the novel. Hawthorne in one way or another refers to that symbol, he mentions it many times. He called it by its full name, the scarlet letter. At another time it is the “embroidered letter” or “the fatal symbol”. We are never allowed to forget it. Interestingly, the frequency of its use is divided almost equally between the first and the second halves of the novel. Hawthorne describes Hester and Dimmesdale as both “buried under the same tombstone” on which is inscribed “on a field, sable, the letter “A”, gules”.
The minister’s gesture of putting his hand over his heart may be habitual one. However, there is a little doubt that Hawthorne intends the gesture to be related to Dimmesdale’s own private scarlet letter, which has been growing increasingly vivid and painful. In chapter 9 Hawthorne describes this action three times. In chapter 10 the Minister and Chillingworth are talking about Hester, and Dimmesdale says: “It must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain as this poor woman. Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart”. It is only a few pages later while Dimmesdale is sleeping that Chillingworth makes his discovery. Later Pearl and Hester join the Minister on the scaffold; Hawthorne writes:(p. 197)
“And their stood the Minister, with his hand over his heart; and Hester Prynne with the embroidered letter glimmering on her bosom, and little Pearl herself a symbol, and the connecting link between these two”.
The phrase “herself a symbol” seems to connects the Minister’s gesture with the symbol on his heart. In chapter 15, Pearl asks for three times why the Minister keeps his hand over his heart.
When Hester is trying to give courage and strength to Dimmesdale, in chapter 18, he tells her that she can be happy because she wears her scarlet letter openly, while “mine burns in secret”. And then when she tells him that Chillingworth is really his enemy, he starts to his feet “gasping for breath, and clutching at his heart, as if he would have torn it out of his bosom”.
As Dimmesdale dies , he exclaims that God has shown him mercy by giving him “this burning torture” to bear upon his bosom. So, as we see, it is a lot motifs, extending from nearly the beginning of the story towards its end, and appearing on 30 different pages of the book, and it is a whole story itself.