Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes

Revenge is a powerful thing, especially when a man allows it to consume his thoughts and control his every action and emotion. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth is a perfect example of a man who allows his vengeful thoughts to turn into an obsession. When Roger Chillingworth returns to the colony after being held captive by Indians, he finds his wife Hester Prynne standing on a scaffold holding a child. Once Chillingworth learns of Hester’s affair, he devotes his life to the vengeance of Hester’s “unknown lover.” Throughout The Scarlet Letter, the reader witnesses how evil revenge is and how much it affects Chillingworth mentally, emotionally, and physically. From the moment Hawthorne introduces Chillingworth,

Feeling betrayed and allowing evil thoughts to penetrate his mind, Chillingworth visited Hester while she was in prison. When Hester admitted to Chillingworth that she had wronged him, Chillingworth admitted that they both had “wronged each other,” (83) and because Chillingworth felt as though “the scale [hung] fairly balanced,” (84) he sought “no vengeance” (83) and did not plot “evil against thee” (83). However, Chillingworth was still determined to learn who Hester’s unknown lover was, and when Hester refused to reveal a name, “with a smile of dark and self-relying intelligence” (84) Chillingworth replied, “Few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery” (84). The previous line is Hawthorne’s first illustration of Chillingworth’s act of vengeance turning into not only an obsession, but a

Both his attitude and the result of his revenge describe the effects of a person’s vengeance. Not only did he slowly decompose the life of Dimmesdale, but after the death, he lost reason for living and died also. Though the reader could almost sympathize and possibly even side with Chillingworth at the beginning of the novel because of the adultery Hester committed, the Bible states that vengeance is not man’s, but God’s, and that a man should not return evil with evil. In Roman’s 12:19 God says, “Vengeance is Mine. I will repay,” and in Roman’s 12:21 the Bible says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” So though Chillingworth had every right to be upset, revenge was not for him to take into his own hands. A wise reader will learn from Chillingworth’s mistakes, and allow God to take control of the situation rather than taking things into his own