Throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne maintains a thin line between good and evil. Who is morally good? Who is morally rotten? Between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth it is tough to tell. Both characters have their virtues, yet both have their fatal weaknesses. Only at the finale of the story, when "justice" deals with the disposition of each character in their deaths, is it possible to discern the righteous from the corrupt. Chillingworth, who let his vengeance twist and pollute his soul, died a decrepit and pitiful death, wallowing in his own anger. Yet even though Dimmesdale was the one who committed the true sin, he died solemnly and peacefully, accepting the final judgment of his sin. Arthur Dimmesdale is the true protagonist of the puritan village Boston because not only did he confess at the end and suffer greatly under the burden of the sin during the book, but Chillingworth's own evil served as a glaring contrast to Dimmesdale's goodness.
             It is easy to see the goodness of Dimmesdale bleed forth during the moment of his confession and death. The one thing that could alleviate the excruciating pain and suffering that Dimmesdale was going through was to confess his sin, which eliminated the agony that his existence was devoted to. "Now, at the death-hour, he stands up before you! He bids you look again at Hester's scarlet letter! He tells you, that, with all its mysterious horror, it is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast, and that even this, his own red stigma, is no more than the type of what has seared his inmost heart!" (The Scarlet Letter, XXIII, pg. ). Knowing of his imminent death, and with good intentions, the confession was made. Upon the destruction of the toil inside of him, Dimmesdale, in an almost forgotten feeling of relief, sadly was also destroyed.
             Not only did he die righteously, but during his life he suffered from a terrible burden. Only a
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