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Mine Enemy Is Growing Old

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Dickinson and The Scarlet Letter

What words do you think of when someone mentions The Scarlet Letter? Revenge? Sin? Suffering? Happiness? All of these words describe Nathaniel Hawthorne's book, especially in relation to a few of Emily Dickinson's poems. "For each Ecstatic Instant" and "Mine Enemy is Growing Old" are sometimes described as being written about certain characters from The Scarlet Letter. This is true and they are appropriate to read in conjunction with this book.

If you haven't read "For Each Ecstatic Instant," it is about the balance of emotion. For every happiness there will be sorrow and vice versa. Pearl instantly comes to mind for two different reasons. Hester Prynne committed adultery and is punished for her crime as …show more content…

They might have enjoyed it during the act but they both suffer for years afterwards. Hester had to deal with public shaming and pregnancy and Dimmesdale had to deal with his guilt, sickness, and finally death.

"Mine Enemy is Growing Old" by Emily Dickinson is about revenge. It represents Roger Chillingsworth perfectly. "Mine enemy is growing old, I have at last Revenge." Dimmesdale dies and Chillingsworth finally gets revenge on the man his wife loved. "'Anger as soon as fed is dead." As soon as Chillingworth finally gets his revenge, its all gone. "Starving makes it fat." The longer Chillingsworth was aiding Dimmesdale, his secret hate grew larger and larger.

The basis of this poem is that when you do revenge, its not enjoyable. It is usually anticlimactic and disappointing. During the whole book, Chillingsworth is angry and vengeful towards Hester and Dimmesdale. His need for revenge grows until Dimmesdale dies. On page 270 of Chapter 24, the narrator describes Chillingsworth as "positively withered up, shriveled away, and almost vanished." The narrator describes him as not knowing what to do after his revenge was successful because he dedicated his life to this act of revenge. He died within the

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When Chillingworth visits Hester in prison, he claims that “his [the adulterer] fame, his position, his life, will be in my hands” (53). Chillingworth makes a vow to Hester that he will find the man who enticed her and will destroy the individual’s life and soul. As the novel progresses, Chillingworth establishes himself as the town doctor and Dimmesdale develops a mysterious illness that perplexes and worries the townspeople. His illnesses leads to Roger Chillingworth becoming his medical advisor, “as not only the disease interested the physician, but he was strongly moved to look into the character and qualities of the patient, these two men...came gradually to spend much time together” (84). Chillingworth takes advantage of the fact that Dimmesdale needs medical attention and establishes himself as a friend, with the intention of finding out personal information about Dimmesdale.

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Hawthorn Uses revenge to illustrate Chillingworth's decline of death. Roger Chillingworth has one main reason to get revenge and that reason is Dimmsdale, the Minister who stole his wife. Roger Chillingworth has spent 7 years of his life he will never get back just to get revenge on Dimmesdale who at the moment could care less as long as he is innocent in all of this. Chillingworth is wanting revenge more than anything in the world, His face has become as terrible looking as his soul just trying to get revenge, revenge is aging him very quickly and had caused Roger to look like a demon. Roger Chillingworth is doing everything is his power to try to get Dimmsdale to tell his big secret but Dimmesdale is doing everything is his power to keep

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Chillingsworth works day in and day out making Dimmesdale sick with work that people will find out what he had done. It's so bad that Dimmesdale starts to do self harm. Chillingworth even goes about so that hester knows what she had done was wrong too and he makes her life like she is walking on

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He says that even though the other sinner would lose prestige in the town if his name were revealed, it would be better for him to confess his sin than it would be for him to "hide a guilty heart through life" (70). A cause of Dimmesdale’s outrageous pain is the gruesome Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth is Hester’s husband, and he finds out that Dimmesdale is her former lover. He gets his revenge by getting quartered close to Dimmesdale and being his doctor in order to torture Dimmesdale. Throughout the novel Chillingworth is compared to Satan because he; has a "writhing horror…like a snake" (63), a light glimmers in his eyes "like the reflection of a furnace" (133), and he even is said to be "Satan himself,," in disguise (132).

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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” (Hawthorne 95-96) which described how Chillingworth made it his soul’s purpose to bring the worst revenge to Dimmesdale that any man had

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Chillingsworth is putting Dimmesdale through great mental and physical travails for revenge while Dimmesdale’s sin is for his love of Hester and he is now doing everything he can to get back in God’s good

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The narrator states, "Arthur Dimmesdale gazed into Hester's face with a look in which hope and joy shone out, indeed, but with fear betwixt them, and a kind of horror at her boldness, who had spoken what he vaguely hinted at, but dared not to speak" (Hawthorne 138). Nevertheless, his moral development continuously stays at Stage 1 "Obedience and Punishment Orientation" because yet again his actions are selfish. He is more considerate about his

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As soon as he reaches Dimmesdale, Chillingworth exclaims, "'Madman, hold! what is your purpose?' whispered he, 'Wave back that woman! Cast off this child! All shall be well!

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Hawthorne also uses Chillingsworth to highlight the dichotomy between the two mindsets of “good” and “evil”. While Hester and Dimmesdale never meant to cause harm to anyone in pursuit of their love, Dimmesdale specifically sought it out in pursuit of his

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Therefore, when Chillingworth gets to torturing Dimmesdale, she has already confessed her guilt over three years. Therefore, her emotional trauma is virtually nil compared to Dimmesdale’s and she also has relatively little emotional tension. Right before Hester enters the Forest with Pearl, “…Hester’s nature showed itself warm and rich; a well-spring of human tenderness, unfailing to every real demand, and inexhaustible by largest.” (110-111) When one compares this with Dimmesdale’s sick, decrepit state at this time in the book, one can see the difference between Hester and Dimmesdale, and following that the effects of divulging guilt and concealing it.

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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

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After her release from prison and public shame, Chillingworth immediately plans to make both Hester and Dimmesdale suffer. Chillingworth’s plotting of his revenge shows his evilness and why he has committed the greatest sin. Dimmesdale’s hidden sins begin to affect him both mentally and physically the way Chillingworth predicts, “He

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He commits adultery with Hester, but in contrast to her, he does not want to fully acknowledge his sin. Hester publicly confessed to her sin while Dimmesdale does not fully admit to his sin. By withholding in his sin, his health deteriorates. His health worsens and worsens as he continues to withhold his sin. Because of his guilt, Dimmesdale punishes himself, like whipping and starving.

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1328 Words | 6 Pages

In the most tension packed scene in the book (Chapter 23- The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter) Hawthorne shows the epitome of the powerful effect of suffering leading to wisdom when Dimmesdale finally confesses in the climax of the book that he’s Pearl’s father at the scaffold, showing how Dimmesdale gained courage. “I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!" Although, Dimmesdale’s actions show great wisdom and self-improvement, his eventual confession was a result of his constant agony and guilt and he came out with the truth only to put an end to the constant torture he couldn’t take anymore. While both Hester and Dimmesdale face suffering as horrifying as his name suggests “Chillingworth’ which is used to describe an inhumane and horrifying figure, Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is a vile and evil character. All his actions stemmed from fury to take revenge on Dimmesdale because of Hester’s betrayal.

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Chillingworth shows no restraint in persecuting Dimmesdale to achieve his ends. When he arrives in the town he finds that a man has committed adultery with his wife, which “[leads] him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy.” From that moment, Chillingworth swears to exact his retribution. He forms a plan which will only satisfy his selfish desire to destroy the man that wronged him.

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