How Does Hawthorne Use Irony In The Scarlet Letter

"Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge." When reading a story, the events that have already presented themselves, lead a person to perceive what is going to happen, but when that person encounter an unexpected event, as commonly experienced through irony, it changes what the person perceives is going to happen. The Scarlet Letter exemplifies this use of irony to challenge truth. Hawthorne provides details about a specific character, but then creates an event which stands in contrast to these details. Hawthorne's uses irony, portrayed through characters' names, the first scaffold scene, and the Puritan community, to express the truth throughout the novel.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses characters' names to contrast to their actual characteristics. He uses the name Pearl, which means purity, as a nickname for a mischievous character. He portrays Roger Chillingworth as a doctor, while Chillingworth's main purpose involves causing the deterioration of Arthur Dimmesdale's health. Arthur Dimmesdale, a saint-like figure to the Puritan Community, indulges in a great sin. Being a minister, his life
The first scaffold scene connotes not only a connection between Hester and Dimmesdale, but also Dimmesdale's wishes in regard to their sin. At the beginning of the novel, while the reader's main question involves Pearl's father, Hawthorne asides other characters by emphasizing Dimmesdale's questioning of Hester. This emphasis exposes Dimmesdale as the prime suspect to be Pearl's father. Dimmesdale speaks curiously in third-person about what Pearl's father should do. He also stresses that Hester should tell who she had an affair with, and that her partner will accept being exposed, as if trying to convince her that he wants to be revealed but is to scared to do so on his own. This event causes irony, as the focus on Dimmesdale and Hester in this scene foreshadows their relations later in the