How Did Chillingworth's Change In The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne contains a number of main characters. The most important would be Hester Prynne, Pearl, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. All main characters in the book are unique and different in their own way, the one who is being analyzed today is Roger Chillingworth. In this novel the antagonist is Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth has a number of things occur to him, which clearly cause him to do things that are not considered good in any way. Chillingworth seeks revenge on the person who Hester got pregnant with, although Chillingworth was not with her while she was in Boston to begin with. It would depend if someone could empathize with someone like Roger Chillingworth. Almost everyone

This change is not for the better, it is for the worst. At the beginning of the novel Chillingworth does want revenge, but that is not his sole objective. Nathaniel Hawthorne even wrote that before, “Old Roger Chillingworth throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not … a pure and upright man.” As the book advances Chillingworth becomes more and more evil, the revenge starts to consume up to the point where that is the only thing he cares about. Near the end of the book he even goes as far as to go with Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl, to England so he can torture Dimmesdale longer. Although Chillingworth does change, his opinion does not. What changes is how far he will go in order for Dimmesdale to be tortured, for the sole reason that he is Pearl’s father. Since Chillingworth’s ideas he could be considered a static character in the Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale views Chillingworth’s sin worse than his own. In the Scarlet Letter Hawthorne wrote “That old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated in cold blood the sanctity of the human heart.” Hawthorne believes that it is worse to seek revenge than to have a child out of wedlock and keep it a secret, which is pretty reasonable. Revenge is never good no matter what because although it may be difficult, forgiveness is always an answer. Dimmesdale had a child out of wedlock and kept it a secret. This is not something that is good but it is not as bad as revenge, sometimes it is necessary to keep a secret for the greater