Hester Prynn stands on a scaffold
In medical college they had to take notes rather at once. commencing off to be a doctor isn't that straightforward now, the fee of their writing messep up their handwriting and that they do now no longer care approximately it after commencing off to be a doctor.
Hey!~ I'm reading that book too! I hate it though. The scaffold scene in Chapter 1 is Hester (and indirectly Pearl)'s public aknowledgement of the sin she committed. That was her way of doing penance and embracing and somehow accepting it. In Ch. 12, Dimmesdale decides to hold an all night vigil there as his way of acknowledging his sin, though not to the community, but to himself. It took him seven years to try and come to terms with his part in the adultery. This scaffold scene is made more signigicant by the fact that the letter A appears via a meteor and the fact that Dimmesdale feels it's directed especially to him. Hope this helps, though I don't know if it fully answers the question. Elaboration is definitely necessary.
