What Does Chillingworth Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

In the book The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses multiple characters as symbols. With an influx of evidence, Hawthorne proves that Roger Chillingworth is a symbol of evil. Roger Chillingworth first appears in chapter three of the book. He is Hester’s estranged husband from England. He fits into the story as a medical professional that has just traveled to the town. The reader gathers Chillingworth is kind at first, but quickly takes a turn for evil. There is a multitude of proof that Chillingworth is a symbol of evil.

The first piece of evidence that proves Chillingworth is a symbol of evil is that he looks extremely peculiar and point to him being evil. Hawthorne starts the reader with the idea that Chillingworth is strange and unidentifiable,

When Chillingworth figures out why Hester is standing as a statue of ignominy, he decides to choose revenge against Hester and the person she committed sin with because public shame isn’t enough for him. “As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter which seemed to scorch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture and smiled. He said, live therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women - in the eyes of him thou didst call thy husband - in the eyes of yonder child!”(61). When Chillingworth was still inquiring about Hester’s lover, he wanted to know what was going on with Dimmesdale. Chillingworth wasn’t going to give up until he got the revenge Chillingworth thought Dimmesdale and Hester deserved. “A terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity seized the old man within its gripe and never set him free again, until he had done all its bidding”(103). Furthermore, once Chillingworth found out that Dimmesdale is the man that Hester committed adultery with, Chillingworth decided that he wants to psychologically torture Dimmesdale. “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

Roger Chillingworth is one of those people that hide their identity from the outside world. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, it is clear that he sacrifices his identity in order to be evil without as many consequences. The initial example of this is when Hester meets Chillingworth again, as her doctor. “Breathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband!”(63). Chillingworth says this to Hester for one reason which is, he doesn’t want to take any blame for Hester’s sin, and he doesn’t want to be humiliated by being cuckolded. Even though no one wants to be shamed, it is still a fairly evil move to deny the fact of being Hester’s husband. An additional example of hiding his identity is that Hawthorne makes it clear to the reader that Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth do not have the same last name, despite them being married. Chillingworth does this to further hide his identity and to disprove that he is indeed Hester’s husband. It is also symbolic that the root of “Chillingworth” is “chilling” which could directly relate to Roger’s new and colder outlook on life. The concluding example of hidden identity is that Chillingworth doesn’t really reveal much about his past, especially when it comes to his Indian experiences. This is because in the time of The Scarlet Letter, anything correlated with Indians meant witchcraft, and this would make people more