Obsessive Nature In The Scarlet Letter

Roger Chillingworth’s Obsessive Nature

The essence of human nature is motives for living, which could be through love, procreation, or success. Those who lack these externally given motives of life could develop depressive or even sinister states and retreat into obsessive coping mechanisms in an attempt to retrieve a sense of happiness. This sequence of events is exactly what happened to Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlett Letter”. Chillingworth progressively unravels his obsessive nature through his actions before the novel takes place, his acts of revenge against Dimmesdale, and his demise.

Before Chillingworth reaches Boston, you understand where his motivations lie to get to that point and his underlying obsessive

Even before their marriage he surely knew she didn’t love him but he held on to a glimmer of hope to carry on that one day she might love him. But Hester’s affair with Dimmesdale concludes his delusion that she will ever fall in love with him. During Chillingworth’s lifetime, he has depended on obsessing over an achievable entity to survive. Since Hester’s love is no longer a plausible achievement he can only blame the man who created this issue, her new lover, Dimmesdale. He states, “I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine” (28 Hawthorne). His plot of revenge on Hester’s new lover is the only thing he wants to pursue for the rest of his life as it is the only matter of relevance. As the novel symbolically represents Chillingworth as a leech and Dimmesdale as his patient it shows how Chillingworth functions. Chillingworth did not want Dimmesdale to die but for him to torture him for the rest of his life since he would have no greater purpose after Dimmesdale. This could see as reasoning why Chillingworth had the intention to board the ship Hester Dimmesdale and Pearl were on so he could get the gratification of always being there to torture

Like a puppet Chillingworth’s strings were predestined to be pulled with his puppet master being the Devil. Everything that Chillingworth did in his life from only focusing on his studies to marrying Hester was all to the Devil’s pursuit of sinister goals of tormenting Reverend Dimmesdale to slow down the words of God. After Chillingworth’s life motivations have been fulfilled while destroying almost all his human qualities in the process he has no more reason to live in his and the Devil’s eyes. Chillingworth’s last fraction of humanity can be seen when he gives his money as well as property to Pearl can show a sense of love and compassion he had still inside of him. Driven by the human quality of sinful obsession Chillingworth only reacted in his human way of lacking what humans need for happiness. His attempt at happiness through obsession is depicted before he reaches Boston, during the years he lives in Boston, and at his demise. Chillingworth like a leech was never truly happy or satisfied with himself until his final action of helping