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Roger chillingworth character analysis
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Character analysis of chillingworth
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A person’s outward appearance often influences the way others perceive their character. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth arrives in the colony to find that his wife, Hester, is being punished for extramarital relations. As the storyline continues, Chillingworth acts as the colony’s physician, becoming very close to Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Consequently, Chillingworth’s desire for revenge guided his appearance and interactions with Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale, ultimately altering his character.
Roger Chillingworth committed the greater sin in the Scarlet Letter. Chillingworth was a malicious man. After the news that Hester had committed adultery, he became more and more like the “Black Man.” He lied about being a doctor and his identity. Additionally, Chillingworth was the overall cause for Dimmesdale’s death, after seven years of torturing his mind.
Everyone comes across something in their life that speaks to them--a symbol as it will be called. In the book, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are many symbols, but there is one that really stands out above the rest, and that is the mark on Dimmesdale’s chest. The Scarlet Letter’s primary focus is on the life of Hester Prynne, who had an affair with someone and was accused of the crime and forced to wear a scarlet letter A for the rest of her life. The mark on Arthur Dimmesdale’s chest (although it was never truly stated what the mark actually was) can be seen as guilt in physical form which slowly begins to show over time.
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.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale commits a mortal sin by having an affair with a married woman, Hester Prynne. As a man of the cloth in Puritan society, Dimmesdale is expected to be the embodiment of the town’s values. He becomes captive to a self-imposed guilt that manifests from affair and his fear that he won’t meet the town’s high expectations of him. In an attempt to mitigate this guilt, Dimmesdale acts “piously” and accepts Chillingworth’s torture, causing him to suffer privately, unlike Hester who repented in the eyes of the townspeople. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his sin to the townspeople, he is able to free himself from his guilt.
In the first chapters of The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth tells Hester Pryne “I shall seek this man, as I have sought gold in alchemy…I shall see him tremble… he must needs be mine!” (page
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.
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
Hester Prynne, the heroine of The Scarlet Letter, commits adultery against her husband, a wealthy English businessman. Roger Chillingworth is that man, only his name isn 't Roger Chillingworth. He changes his name when he arrives in Salem and finds out that his wife has had an affair with another man: the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. In order to blend in inconspicuously among the people of Salem so he can locate and punish his wife 's lover, Chillingworth changes his name.
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.
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
Here, Chillingworth establishes a trusting, respectable relationship with his patient, thus enabling him to probe and cripple Dimmesdale’s mind. Even though he presents a face of scholarly, compassionate mien, the sinful obsession existing within begins overtaking his person. In private he experiments with mind games “speak[ing] in riddles” to his patient (Hawthorne 123). However, Chillingworth’s malicious acts lack complete concealment as his physical appearance demonstrates how his internal evil destroys his body. Hester Prynne takes note to this change.
Chillingworth began his investigation into Hester’s relationship as “a judge, desirous only of truth,” but as he continued his investigation he gained “a terrible fascination” that would hold him until he solved the mystery (138). His obsession with this case leads him to dedicate all his time into figuring out the truth, thus changing his personality. The Puritans would have believed his desire to seek the truth legitimate, however his terrible fascination with something unholy goes against Puritan values. Along with his personality, Chillingworth’s alienation brings on changes in his physical appearance, and the people who thought he was a gift from Heaven in the beginning begin to see “something ugly and evil in his face” (136). Through this Hawthorne reveals isolation can bring out the worst in even the best of us.
Chillingworth disguises himself and works his way into Hester’s and Dimmesdale’s lives. Chillingworth’s actions do not coordinate with his words. He will say one thing but do another. He tries to play it off as this good physician that helps people when in reality he is only there for one thing, revenge. “A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!"
His novel The Scarlet Letter expresses this very idea by exposing the follies of mankind and the potentially detrimental effects of sin through Hester Prynne, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth
