It is fascinating to me the dichotomy in which Hawthorne choses to portray Arthur Dimmesdale. In the public sphere, he is a pastor so beloved by his congregation that literally every occasion in which it is even remotely suggested that his sheet-white conscience may actually be stained with the mark of passionate disobedience is met by immediate and optimistic justification by the public, even when the scope of such a suggestion permanently associates him as the adulterous partner of the town's known whore and absent father of her bastard daughter.

But instead of being relieved that his sin continues to go unnoticed, Dimmesdale is all the more angry and upset. Each time he attempts to dethrone himself as this spiritually endowed mentor/prophet, his self-deprecation preached from the pulpit only furthers his status as a uniquely humble individual in the eyes of the public.

Is this behavior not the ironic opposite of a human public so infamous for making accusations against innocent men? Most men that hold any form of public office take great pains to be seen as innocent, yet the public never fails to dig up some sort implicating evidence.

Dimmesdale wishes to be seen by the public in the same way that he mistakenly chooses to see himself- as the greatest of sinners and most hideous of men. He is Faust, and strives perpetually to bring about his own damnation. Ironically, however, the public refuses to damn him, even when the sun shines brightly on the scarlet letter in the middle of the public sphere.

"It is a curios subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object. Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow."