Who Is Chillingworth's Identity In The Scarlet Letter

The separation of public and private life poses the question of where the line must be drawn, a distinction that is uniquely interpreted by every individual. In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts a society dominated by the threat of public humiliation. The censorious environment in Boston pressures the Puritans to fit in by any means necessary, even if they must mask their humanity to avoid punishment. The resultant contrast between public and private life advances one of Hawthorne’s main messages: “No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true” (194). The miseries suffered by Hester, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth

Chillingworth alone possesses a “wish and purpose to mask” himself (152). His success in doing so is evident in the constant reference to his “visage,” his “aspect” and his “guarded look” (153), divorcing his appearance from his underlying intent. Depicted as “frightful” with “glares of red light” flickering “out from his eyes” (153), Chillingworth’s face begins to physically resemble a mask. Under “the guise of old Roger Chillingworth” (116), Hester’s husband exploits his status as a “leech” to “burrow into the clergyman’s intimacy” and “dig into the poor clergyman’s heart” (117). The author’s invasive language betokens Chillingworth’s similarity to a parasite, as he violates Dimmesdale’s privacy. Even as he punishes Dimmesdale for masking his guilt, Chillingworth fails to see the irony in his own use of duplicity to achieve his ends. He commences his investigations with what he deems “the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth” (117), but this is soon substituted for “his own black devices” (127). The sadistic “ecstasy” (126) that Chillingworth extracts from his tortures of Dimmesdale exposes his malicious intent and classifies his deception as sin. The devolution goes unnoticed by Chillingworth himself, until he inadvertently boasts to Hester that he “had become a fiend for his [Dimmesdale’s] especial torment”

Initially, Hester’s mask is forcibly removed when she is “disciplined to truth” (156) by the scarlet letter and sentenced to “lay open her heart’s secrets in such broad daylight” (60). Even this imposed candor is short-lived, however, because the people use the scarlet letter to pigeonhole Hester as an adulteress, once more obscuring her identity. A mask is fitted to Hester every time a sermon introduces her as “the subject of discourse” (79), presenting her as a cautionary tale. Within Hester’s reflection in the armor at the governor’s house, the letter’s appearance as “the most prominent feature of her appearance” (97) mirrors the way in which Hester vanishes behind the letter in the eyes’ of the townspeople. Even after their perception of Hester changes, the letter “A” still labels her as an “angel” and an “able” woman (146). Such immersion in pretense eventually instills it within Hester, too. On Election Day, Hester acknowledges the necessity of façade in her admonishment of Pearl: “We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest” (215). Thus, in Puritan New England, masks are an inescapable feature of life, even for the most resistant of individuals. Conspicuously, only Pearl, who possesses “no regard for human ordinances” (122), defies the trend. Pearl alone does not discriminate between ¬¬¬¬¬the public and