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Roger Chillingworth In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a novel that we can learn from. In this paper we will mainly focus on one of the character, Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, was a physician who tried to treat Dimmesdale and tried to keep his identity secret. Roger Chillingworth is one of the four main characters: Aurthur Dimmesdale, Hester Prynn, and Pearl. We will be looking deeper into the character of Roger Chillingworth. As previously stated, Roger Chillingworth is Hester Prynn’s husband. In the beginning of the novel we find out that Hester had come to this village by herself, and Roger was going to follow a short time after. However, Chillingworth was captured by some Indians (pg. 80). During this time Roger learned how to be a physician from the Indians (pg. 80). Chillingworth first sees Hester again when she is standing on the scaffold (pg. 67). Once Hester is moved back to the jail, Chillingworth volunteers to look after her. Here …show more content…

135). This move already shows us the plot of revenge Chillingworth has. He wants to find and expose Hester’s partner in crime. The people thought of him as a great acquisition. They needed a physician and they thought he completed their village. As the minister grew worse people began to think it better that Chillingworth move in with the minister (pg.142). Roger was trying to expose him. Roger Chillingworth got so tied up in trying to expose Arthur Dimmesdale that he began to change (pg 146). People gave him the nickname of the leech. He clung to the minister trying to expose him. Roger diagnosed the minister Arthur Dimmesdale with a soul problem (pg, 155). He said it is not a physical problem. He said it was a problem with his spirit. Dimmesdale became skeptical and nervouse around Chillingworth. Eventually Hester told Dimmesdale who Chillingworth was. Roger Chillingworth never got what he wanted and eventually faded

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Roger Chillingworth is speaking to Hester in this quote about how much her cheating affected him. Since the author did not give very much information about Roger before he returned to Boston, it was difficult to measure exactly how he had changed since learning of the scarlet letter. Through his previous words and actions regarding Hester and especially Reverend Dimmesdale, Roger depicts himself as a man filled with hatred and focussed on revenge. Before mentioning his old self, Roger Chillingworth told Hester about Reverend Dimmesdale’s suffering since he had become somewhat of his personal physician. Roger says that the reverend sensed “an eye was looking curiously into him,” which, undoubtedly, represents the presence of Roger Chillingworth,

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In chapter 4, Chillingworth is brought into the jail to examine Hester’s baby, Pearl. During this time, they talk of things that have happened since they last saw each other a. Most of the conversation is purely informational, and they maintain a surface relationship. This changes, however, when Hester and Chillingworth meet in the woods. They speak on a personal level and of their “promise of secrecy” within their relationship (Hawthorne, 1994, p. 117).

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Chillingworth came to Boston to dig up who impregnated Hester. He seemed to have very little interest in Hester, his main goal was to find out the truth about Pearl’s father. As he does this, he twists the mind of Reverend Dimmesdale and becomes toxic. He becomes obsessed with trying to get vengeance on Dimmesdale for impregnating Hester. As the years go on, even the physical

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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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Roger Chillingworth first appeared “drooping down, as it were, out of the sky, or starting from the nether earth…” associated with deformity and mystery. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses diction and mass imagery to portray Chillingworth as a symbol for evil and a devilish figure. Chillingworth lived with Native Americans, from them he gained the knowledge of “miraculous cures”. These "miraculous cures" Hawthorne describes them as witchcraft, advancing the evil characteristic of Chillingworth.

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He went into the town to see someone he knew very well up on a scaffold showing her sinful mistake to everyone who could see. The woman on the Scaffold was not only someone Chillingworth knows but his wife, Hester Prynn. Though she was on the scaffold she was not alone, in her arms lay a small baby, Hester's baby. A pain ran through Chillingworth's mind, or maybe is wasn't pain it was anger. Hester did not see the baby as bad news, Chillingworth did force her into marriage and left her for 2 years in a new town, Hester is a very attractive girl and because Roger was so old and gone for so long everyone assumed he had perished.

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Roger Chillingworth is a normal, good person painted in a bad light because the story focuses so much on Hester. Roger Chillingworth does some virtuous actions throughout the story that are pushed to the background. He seems to be fairly open minded in that he willingly lived with the Native Americans who captured him. He also gained knowledge of medicine from the Natives that he uses to help the town as its doctor. He has many positive traits: ability to learn, open-mindedness, ability to persevere, and

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Hester finds community service, whereas the minister's sin-related repercussions cause him immense distress and a physical and emotional breakdown. Chillingworth steps in as the go-between to help Hester and Dimmesdale realize what they are going through. He evolves into someone even nastier than he was before. He devises a plan to undermine Hester's reputation, which was already in jeopardy. Tarnishing Hester’s reputation was Chillingworth’s way of getting back at Hester for the humiliation that she caused him.

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The conflict between the clergyman and the reverend abled Dimmesdale to finally speak the truth and escape “the old Roger Chillingworth.” Through conflict Dimmesdale was given a second chance to confess his sin, escape Chillingworth’s cruel hands. Wes Moore was given a second chance through the incident with shani “Westley. . . hit. . . face. .

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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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He moves in with Dimmesdale, and claims he will care for him, but the public cannot see that his intention is to torture Dimmesdale. Hawthorne explains, “The intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. 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” (126). He deliberately chooses to drive Chillingworth into insanity.

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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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Chillingworth has a helpless victim, who doesn’t even realize who Chillingworth is yet, and he exercises his power over the minister with great enthusiasm. When Hester meets him in the forest, Chillingworth has a blackness in his visage and a red light showing out of his eyes, as if “the old man's soul were on fire, and kept on smoldering duskily within his breast.” (pg.153). In seeking vengeance, he has taken on the devil's job. His obsession with revenge is what makes him the worst sinner and, therefore, a pawn of the devil so, it’s ironic that Hester meets him in the dark forest, a place the Puritans see as the home of the Black

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1322 Words | 6 Pages

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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1146 Words | 5 Pages

The narrator portrays him as an intelligent but angry old man that does not have any interest in his wife any longer unless it is plotting revenge. One theme in this chapter is something that can slowly destroy people mentally, guilt. The irony that took place in this story is that Chillingworth is trying to find the father of his wife's child. The main theme in chapter three and four is obeying the law of the people and if failed to be done it will end in punishment. Journal Entry 3: Chapters 5-6 For the rest of Hester’s life she will be forced to wear a red embroidered “A” at all times on her clothes.

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