In the novel The Scarlet Letter sinning is greater or equal to any crime today. In the small Puritan town many people sin, but Roger Chillingworth commits the greatest sin. He is the husband of Hester Prynne and a physician in Boston, Massachusetts. He is a man who is not only lost to the devil but a fraud. He puts his good skill to bad deeds. He lets the urge of revenge get the best of him. Dimmesdale and Hester commit great sins too, but Chillingworth commits the greatest. Chillingworth finally makes it to Boston a year after his wife, to find her on the scaffold with a baby in her hands and a scarlet letter on her bosom. He finally gets to speak with Hester as he is treating her after three hours on the scaffold. Chillingworth says to Hester, “Thou hast kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine!” Chillingworth is asking Hester to not reveal who he really is because he does not want to cause any more trouble for her and he wants to get revenge on Hester’s lover. He has a hate in his heart for the man that has not spoken up to this sin. Chillingsworth is going to lie about being someone he is not to find out who the father of Hester’s child, Pearl, is. …show more content…
Chillingworth does not know until one night he spots something that looks as if it was a scarlet letter branded on Dimmesdale’s chest. As he sees this Chillingworth completely changes, “At first, his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now there was something ugly and evil in his face.” Chillingworth has now turned into Reverend Dimmesdale’s own personal hell, “...haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan’s emissary, in the guise of old Roger Chillingworth.” Chillingworth has now sold his soul to the devil for revenge on