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Hester Prynne In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Scarlet letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this story takes place in Massachusetts Bay Colony mid 17th century. In this novel it first talks about how the book came to be written. A young woman Hester Prynne is led from the town prison with her infant daughter pearl wrapped up in her arms and the letter “A” for adultery on her breast. Hester has to stand on a scaffold for three hours, while standing on the scaffold she sees her husband Roger Chillingworth in the crowd. Chillingworth is much older than Hester, and he sent her ahead to America to live but never followed her. While waiting for her husband Hester believes that he has died or has been lost at sea, Hester apparently has an affair. She will not reveal her lovers identity, and the scarlet letter is her punishment for …show more content…

Chillingworth is going to let the scarlet letter do the revenge in Hester’s life. Hester knows what her husband is capable of and keeps quiet. Chillingworth is a physician but he lies about everything else to the townspeople. He settles intent on how to get revenge on Dimmesdale; Hester’s secret lover. Several years pass Hester and her daughter pearl live off the edge of Boston. Hester takes care of her and her daughter pearl by working as a seamstress. Pearl is very unique, hardheaded, willful child. The townspeople believe she is a demon child. Hester feels that her daughter’s wild behavior is somehow associated with her conception and birth. Pearl’s action is a constant reminder of Hester’s adulterous acts. The community feels the need to take Pearl from her mother because they feel like Hester is an unfit parent. The help of Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester and Pearl remain to stay together. Dimmesdale has been sick caused by distress. Chillingworth takes care of the minister and also moves in. Chillingworth discovers an on Dimmesdale also known as the stuff he has been hiding from the townspeople. While Chillingworth secretly torments Dimmesdale, his stress begins to weaken and

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Basically, Chillingworth wants to keep Dimmesdale from confessing of Chillingworth’s pleasure. Through his interactions with Dimmesdale, Chillingworth shows the vengeful aspect of his

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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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When Chillingworth first arrives into town he claims to be a doctor, by saying this he has to take room with Dimmesdale, to nurse him back to health. Chillingworth's living arrangement leads to the revelation of Dimmesdale's secret. When the truth is revealed the start of Chillingworth's torturous act upon Dimmesdale begins.

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Furthermore, in the story of The Scarlet Letter, Hester, has a child with the town’s minister Arthur Dimmesdale, however, Chillingworth, the actual husband of Hester gets wind of this news and immediately sets out to find out who committed

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Izabella DeJohn Michael Edwards April 12, 2023 English 112 The Humiliation of Chillingworth In the opening scene of The Scarlet Letter, where the main character Hester Prynne is forced to stand upon a scaffold in the center of town as an act of humiliation, the character Roger Chillingworth is introduced to the novel when he inquires of a local townsperson who the woman standing upon the scaffold is. Chillingworth, an English physician who had recently escaped the captivity of the Native Americans, was immediately recognized among the crowd of people by Hester Prynne. As Hester’s husband, Chillingworth feared being associated with a woman who had been publicly shamed; thus, he placed his finger on his lips as a gesture to Hester not to expose his identity.

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Chillingworth has been torturing Dimmesdale for the past 7 years, in order to punish him for committing adultery with Hester, Chillingworth’s wife. Hester did not tell Dimmesdale about this fact and at first he does not forgive her for not disclosing the truth. After, he does forgive her and Hester takes off the Scarlet Letter. In this passage and at other instances in the novel, Hawthorne raises the question of where is happiness found.

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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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In the beginning, Chillingworth craved for vengeance, and filled his emotions with wrath. As Chillingworth resolves his issue by tantalizing Dimmesdale, he builds upon his vengeance with the sins of pride, and lust for additional retaliation. Finally when the novel is wrapping up, there still exists the wickedness within Chillingworth, and the sins of greed. Given Chillingworth’s circumstances, he could have cease dwelling on the negative thoughts and happily lived; however, he chose to be the devil’s

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Whenever Hester walks through the town, the people harshly judge her or their children attack her by throwing mud, for example (Hawthorne 71). The only life Hester now knows is one of seclusion and desolation; her sole true happiness takes form in her now older child, Pearl. However, because the townspeople believe Hester is an unfit mother, they try to take Pearl away. Ultimately she keeps her child, but the citizens reiterate that in their eyes Hester will always be the woman that had an illegitimate child with a father that remains unknown. The only person that avidly searches for the identity of this mysterious father is Hester’s former husband, Roger

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It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread. Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy.” (107.) Roger Chillingworth spent his entire life attempting getting revenge on Dimsdale for what he did to his wife. Chillingworth didn’t just want to hurt Dimmesdale but destroy him emotionally.

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After hearing this, Chillingworth is furious with Hester Prynne but also with the man who has done this. He decides to find the man who had done this and seek revenge, yet he does not reveal his relation to Hester Prynne and forces her to keep it a secret as well or the man she had committed adultery with would be destroyed. One small choice to not forgive but instead seek revenge changes Chillingworth into an evil physician an a devil who seeks to destroy. Roger Chillingworth is first seen in The Scarlet Letter by Hester Prynne while she is standing on the scaffold with her child, Pearl (66-67). Hester recognizes him and he notices her reconciliation and motions for her to remain silent and not acknowledge him (67).

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On various occasions, he causes Dimmesdale to become paranoid by being ever-present and never giving him space. There is a clear connection between the amount of time Chillingworth spends with Dimmesdale and Dimmesdale’s worsening health, but the Puritan people become blinded by the

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Chillingworth thus establishes himself as a prime example of a compelling spiteful being by leeching off Dimmesdale for information, stopping Dimmesdale and Hester from exiling

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He disappeared for a period of time and Hester didn´t know if he was even alive. All this time Chillingworth had been captured by Indians and was living with them. When he came back to Boston, Chillingworth finds Hester on the scaffold holding a baby that´s not his and wearing a scarlet “A” on her chest. Chillingworth talks to Hester and asks her who is the child´s father, but Hester refuses to tell him. In that moment Chillingworth swears revenge, but not towards Hester, since he thinks that the scarlet letter and Pearl is punishment enough and that she has received what she deserves.

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