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The Scarlet Letter “But (Hester) is not the protagonist; the chief actor, and the tragedy of The Scarlet Letter is not her tragedy, but Dimmesdales. He it was whom the sorrows of death encompassed….. His public confession is one of the noblest climaxes of tragic literature.” This statement by columnist Randall Stewart does not contain the same ideas that I believed were contained within The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I, on the contrary to …

…make it quite clear that Dimmesdale is a complete coward. He has the chance throughout the entire novel to confess. Despite it all, he is caught up in the fame and the excitement of his reverend-hood, which pushes him down the "slippery slope" inch by inch. His confession is never a true public one, and because of that, I believe the last scene of the novel was not quite as noble as Randall Stewart claims.