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A person’s outward appearance often influences the way others perceive their character. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth arrives in the colony to find that his wife, Hester, is being punished for extramarital relations. As the storyline continues, Chillingworth acts as the colony’s physician, becoming very close to Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Consequently, Chillingworth’s desire for revenge guided his appearance and interactions with Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale, ultimately altering his character.
Roger Chillingworth committed the greater sin in the Scarlet Letter. Chillingworth was a malicious man. After the news that Hester had committed adultery, he became more and more like the “Black Man.” He lied about being a doctor and his identity. Additionally, Chillingworth was the overall cause for Dimmesdale’s death, after seven years of torturing his mind.
Roger Chillingworth plays an important role to the plot of the novel The Scarlet Letter. He is more of a symbol rather than a main character throughout the entire novel. This is due to the fact that he represents how all Puritans should act, at least on the surface. While he is becoming part of a community, he is also planting revenge on Hester and her lover. At first his plot was to reveal Hester’s lover, but that plot turned him into something more vile and evil than before.
Chillingworth is described as having been “calm in temperament, kindly... a pure and upright man” (88), throughout his life. However, while living in the Puritan town, he allows his quest for vengeance to consume him, and “he now [digs] into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a miner searching for gold; or rather, like a sexton [gravedigger] delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man’s bosom” (88). Chillingworth is determined in his search for retribution, so much in fact
Some of the worst forms of malice come from love. Abigail Williams from The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a great example of this. Abigail is a young girl who was caught practicing witchcraft in order to make John only love her. In the puritan times this would mean death. So, to combat this she calls multiple townspeople witches, saying she had seen them with the devil.
Gary throws a fish at him and gets away from the devil. Gary later is scared for his own death for he may have to meet with the devil again. The devil in The Scarlet Letter is also different. The devil is more like the common person because I believe that Chillingworth has the duties as the devil does. He makes sure he Dimsdale lives with the sin that he had done.
The Scarlet Letter In The Scarlet Letter by Daniel Hawthorne many villainous acts occur that contribute to the plot and direction of the text. One antagonist in the novel is Chillingworth, the “departed” husband of Hester Prynne. Chillingworth and his constant mission to gain his wife's love and to reveal the father with whom Hester's baby was conceived by leads him to take some villainous actions. Chillingworth took many actions to obtain his goals, examples of this are constantly exemplified throughout the novel, one example is Chillingworth’s unrelenting hatred towards Dimmesdale.
At first Chillingworth is portrayed through the introduction as a civil man, almost feel sorry for him for the fact that his wife cheated on him, and that she is now imprisoned, Hester even calls him, “the Black Man that haunts the forest round about [the town],”(Hawthorne 94), however, these words foreshadow the dive to insanity Chillingworth later takes after he sets his sights on revenge. Although Chillingworth’s arrival to Massachusetts is not a happy one, the reader can’t feel bad for Chillingworth because during his conversation with Hester, Chillingworth didn’t approach Hester with the intent on being a good husband, but rather as a physician. The lack of love Chillingworth displays to Hester, sheds light onto the how riddled with guilt Chillingworth really is, the mere opposition to comfort her, provides Chillingworth’s first step towards his mental downfall. Some people may argue that Chillingworth never saw a downfall into his own mental state, and that he was passing the punishment that Dimmesdale had deserved. However, the punishments that Dimmesdale was receiving was more torture than anything else, which exemplifies the civility he has lost.
Many stories in literature are not complete without an Antagonist. The Antagonist can be the embodiment of evil or just a roadblock for the main character to overcome. In the short story Sweat, written by Zora Neale Hurston, features an abusive husband, Sykes, as the Antagonist. Sykes dominates and abuses his hard-working wife, Delia. Whereas, Edgar Allen Poe, author of The Cask of Amontillado, uses an ambiguous relationship between Fortunato, a man full of ego and arrogance, who wrongs protagonist Montresor.
A quote in the novel exposes the outcome of sin committed among the characters, “…relieve the darkening close of a tale of human frailty and sorrow,” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 60). Through Dimmesdale’s self-torment, the reader is able to recognize the amount of guilt he feels from the affair. It was a crime of passion, and the sin he committed in his moment of weakness ultimately led to his destruction. Chillingworth is instrumental in expressing another theme, the lust for revenge is due to his “hatred, by a gradual and quiet process…a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility,” (Hawthorne, 1850, p. 256). Chillingworth’s one-sided intentions get him nowhere and being drowned in hatred ultimately leads to his death.
Many characters from The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, changed throughout the progression of the novel, — including Chillingworth, Hester, and even Pearl herself. No character, however, has changed as much as Dimmesdale has. Towards the beginning of the novel, Dimmesdale tries to ignore his sinful actions. Near the middle of the book, the clergyman, with the ‘help’ of Chillingworth, is able to realize his wrongdoings, and starts obsessively thinking of those wrongdoings. Around the end of the novel, with the help of the forest’s freedom, is able to finally repent correctly for his sin.
During this time when Chillingworth is searching for the truth, he exposes Dimmesdale’s chest and founds exactly what he was looking for the scarlet letter imprinted on his chest. On page 125 starts Chillingworth’s discovery with finding the truth. This
Eventually, he comes aware of what he has done and leaves his property to Pearl and Hester. “Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale’s death, in the appearance and demeanour of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth” (253). It is obvious that Chillingworth develops an understanding of his sins after Dimmesdale’s death which made Chillingworth’s life without a purpose. To conclude, revenge and sin are one of the most disturbing crimes a man can commit; therefore, symbolism, figurative language, and imagery were used to verify the awful character of
Revenge strips men of their morality by causing them to see another person as an object for their torment. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth’s vengeance consumes him and it becomes his life’s goal to torture his adversary. Chillingworth is the worst sinner because he seeks to end Dimmesdale, lies to maintain his sinful scheme, and never admits his wrongdoing.
One major difference between the sins was that Chillingworth’s sin was directed to hurt and pain another person. Dimmesdale simply committed adultery out of passion and love for another. Dimmesdale also felt an immense amount of guilt and pain for the sin he did. Chillingworth felt no guilt for what he was doing to Dimmesdale and sinned time after time again, eventually leading Dimmesdale to kill himself. This showed how much more serious the sin Chillingworth committed was in the story (“Who”)