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Chillingworth's Journeys In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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“The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a classic American novel that explores many themes including society, religion, and personal growth. The main characters of the novel include Hester, a shamed adulteress; Dimmesdale, a guilty preacher; Roger Chillingworth, a vengeful husband; and Pearl, an innocent child. Each of these characters experience their own journeys that fundamentally change themselves and their morals. Hester’s journey is one of shame to strength while Dimmesdale’s is one from a moral figure to tortured sinner. Roger Chillingworth, an intelligent scholar becomes an insidious, vengeful villain. Pearl grows from a symbol of sin to one of forgiveness and redemption. Nina Baym and Katherine Harrison analyze the growths …show more content…

Hester Prynne emerges from the jailhouse with her infant, Pearl. Hester with a “burning blush and yet a haughty smile” (page 50) chooses not to cover the tokens of her shame, both the brilliant “A” embroidered on her breast and the small infant. Hawthorne describes how Hester’s “beauty shone out and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy” that surrounded her ( Page 51). Hester travels through the town towards the scaffold while being punished by the harsh stares and stern expressions of the people of her Puritan community . Upon reaching the scaffold, Hester appears to be the “image of Divine Maternity” as she stands upon the scaffold alone with no one to comfort her except her child. Pearl cries in her arms as if she too, can feel the deep humiliation that her mother feels. Hester takes the shame of her sin upon herself and endures “the weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes” as a punishment for her sin (Page 54). Her gaze into the crowd does not falter and she is held by a degree of personal dignity and courage that prevents her from crumbling in front of her community. Nina Baym in her Introduction to the Scarlet Letter, believes this dignity and self respect is “because she did not believe that she did an evil thing” and “to her the act was inseparable from love, love for Dimmesdale, love for Pearl” (Baym). Hester is very vulnerable upon the scaffold. The people who had once stood beside her, …show more content…

Dimmesdale delivers his most powerful sermon and after “showering golden truths upon [the people]” he makes the choice to ascend the scaffold for the final time. He calls Hester and Pearl to stand with him in the bright sunlight. Roger Chilligworth emerges from the crowd with a “dark, disturbed, and evil look.” Chillingworth rage and obsession with revenge consumed what once was an intelligent, rational scholar, reducing him to a old devilish man whose only solace was the pain he inflicted. The “temptor” tries to kep Dimmesdale from revealing his sin but is unsuccessful. Dimmesdale, a dying man, summons his strength and with help from Hester announce to the townspeople that he is the true sinner and reveals the scarlet letter emblazoned on his chest. In his last moments, Dimmesdale achieves catharsis and with a kiss from little Pearl, “the spell was broken.” Dimmesdale dies, his sin revealed to the eyes of everyone. Hester survives and moves on. Katherine Harrison in her introduction to the Scarlet letter states that, “Hester’s evolution reveals a deeply held faith in the possibility of rending the fabric of ordinary experience to perceive a new order, a spiritual truth.” Hester’s transformation reveals the truths about sin and redemption. Hester did not believe that the love between Dimmedale and herself was sinful. It was pure, it had “a

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Hester Prynne is punished in front of the whole Puritan community, with her daughter Pearl. Together Hester holds baby Pearl in her arms while being publicly ridiculed on a scaffold in the center of the town. To escape the constant mockery from the society, she can easily leave and move to a place where no one knows her sin, and where she would be free to live without punishment. Hester knows she has done wrong though, so she decides to stay where her sin takes place and where her punishment is established. Hester believes “The torture of her daily shame would at length purge her soul and work our another purity than that which she had lost.”

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Following Dimmesdale’s death, “all [of Chillingworth 's] strength and energy… and intellectual force seemed at once to desert him… and almost vanished from mortal sight” (Hawthorne 212), as his own death quickly proceeds within a year. When the source of evil that he leeches off of disappears, Chillingworth’s life begins to disintegrate, as he lacks further purpose to survive due to his loss of humanity. His obsession with obtaining revenge eventually forces him to lose control of his own fate, as it becomes dependent on Dimmesdale’s actions. Since Chillingworth devoted his life to seeking revenge on Dimmesdale, without a mortal target, his existence becomes meaningless. In an effort to assert control and prolong his own life, Chillingworth tries to terminate Dimmesdale’s public confession.

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a book filled with romance, surprises, and second chances. Arthur Dimmesdale is a reverend, Reverend Wilson’s younger brother. Arthur’s greatest sin, committing adultery with Hester Prynne, will come to haunt him and lead to his eventual, though untimely, death. Reverend Wilson, along with Arthur’s other parishioners, think that he is a saint (or something close to it). Later on, the author uses this to accentuate his greatest flaw, cowardice, when Dimmesdale tries to tell his congregation of his great sin, when Roger Chillingworth asks Dimmesdale to reveal his secret so that he can better treat his illness, and when he meets Hester in the forest.

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She receives three punishments from the townspeople, who claim they will free her from her sin. The community orders Hester to go to jail, wear a scarlet letter on her chest, and stand on the town scaffold for hours. Hester wears her scarlet letter proudly on her chest, and endures much suffering because of her public ridicule. Hester is “kept by no restrictive clause of her condemnation within the limits of the Puritan settlement” after she was released from prison, but she chooses to stay (Hawthorne 71). Later, Hester’s child, Pearl, symbolizes the Puritan view of Hester.

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The Puritan society openly scorns her for her sin. Hester Prynne, portrayed as a symbol of sin within the puritan society, is an illustration of solidity through her determination, seclusion with the scarlet letter, and hard work ethic. Through all of the mocking and humiliation caused by the colony’s response to Hester’s sin, Hester continues to show strength for Pearl’s sake. “When the young woman--the mother of this child--stood fully revealed before the crowd, it seemed to be her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as

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With Pearl by her side throughout her punishment, Hester was able to step past her sin and use her talents and skills to improve the community that had made her as an outcast. With Hester enhancing the community by helping the less fortunate individuals that lived in the Puritan community, she demonstrated her ability to move away from the past and forgive those who had judged her. The community slowly began to look up to Hester and realize that, “Such helpfulness was found in her - so much power to do and power to sympathize - that many people refused to interpret the scarlet ‘A’ by its original signification. They said it meant ‘Able’...” (Hawthorne 158).

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In the excerpt the Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne presents a psychological approach to the reality of sin and guilt using Hester and Dimesdale adulterous affair which resulted in Hester’s pregnancy of Pearl. Hester becomes a victim of the Puritan morality which is seen as the story unfolds. She suffers at the hands of a religious minister, Dimmesdale who strips her happiness and freedom. The author deals with issues of the human nature such as sin, guilt, hypocrisy and revenge through the role of religion as a central example.

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores recurring themes of suffering surrounding the main characters, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale both commit adultery with each other, and, as a result of this, both experience gruesome and occasionally unbearable forms of suffering. Though they undergo different forms of pain, both of their experiences are highly reliant on how the Puritan society treats them. Hester 's pain stems from the shame and estrangement she receives from the community, while Dimmesdale’s is due to the reverence with which the community regards him. Although, in spite of the fact that both Hester and Dimmesdale receive harsh penalty for their sin, by the end of the book, Hawthorne shows how their suffering is, in fact, the key to their salvation.

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