Ironic Pain

"Never!" replied Hester Prynne, looking, not at Mr. Wilson, but into the deep and troubled eyes of the younger clergyman. "It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!"
When I first read this passage, it seemed to have a deeper resonance than any of the other lines from this scene. The young minister is troubled, instead of being angry or looking persistent. I had a feeling her lover was one of the ministers from the beginning. But now that we know that Dimmesdale is in fact her lover, this passage is even more significant and ironic than before. We can now tell that self inflicted pain Dimmesdale is feeling is really getting to him. Yet somehow his feelings are not (maybe not yet) strong enough to compel him to take his place next to his lover up on the scaffolding. I think that these feelings of remorse, guilt, and the sense of irony are the pillars on which this novel stand. These feeling compel each character to do as they do: such as when Dimmesdale clutches his chest in pain. He is feeling extreme guilt and remorse for what he has done to Hester. These feelings come out of the irony of his situation; he is a minister and leader of the community, and he was Hester's lover. But he cannot not admit his affair due to his position of power. How ironic.