Scarlet Letter Compare And Contrast Moby Dick And Roger Chillingworth

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is punished for adultery and Roger Chillingworth, the husband, is seeking revenge against the adulterer. In another American gothic novel, Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, Captain Ahab is chasing the large white whale named Moby Dick that took his leg. Roger Chillingworth and Captain Ahab are both evil characters with many similarities, like the obsession of their goal and vengeance for their enemy. During The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth has one goal in mind and that is to find who his wife, Hester Prynne, committed adultery with and torture him. Chillingworth’s obsession is absurd he spends night and day finding the adulterer. Once he finds out it’s Reverend Dimmesdale,

Ahab is obsessed with the idea of getting revenge against Moby Dick. He leads his crew into places they should never be, risking every crewmembers life to kill Moby Dick. The mission of his journey is to kill as many whales as possible for blubber to turn into whale oil, but really it’s to get revenge on Moby dick. He gives up a whole pod of sperm whales and leads his crew into solid ice to chase this ginormous white whale. Ahab is seeking vengeance on Moby Dick because the large whale took his leg the last time they met. One can easily tell it is for vengeance because the motto of the crew is “ Death of Moby Dick”. He is willing to give away precious gold just for his vengeance. When he does get the chance to get his revenge, his face lights up with excitement and he goes from being the behind the scenes Captain to being put into a dingy and leading by example. He is not very much of a captain besides when they spot Moby Dick because that is all he wants. He throws away all of his crewmembers lives just to chase the humungous white sperm whale. In The Scarlet Letter and in Moby Dick both of the evil characters have many similar traits. There are multiple showings of evidence in where this is