Who Is Dimmesdale's Suicide In The Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale struggles to repent from his sin of adultery. Heater Prynne, the woman that he committed adultery with, hides him from being humiliated by the townspeople. However, Arthur Dimmesdale’s guilt begins to take over him, which leads to him having some physical, emotional, and mental pain. When Dimmesdale finally reveals his guilt on the scaffold he dies. In the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Jamshed Khan wrote an article that claims Roger Chillingworth killed Arthur Dimmesdale through the use of atropine poisoning. Chillingworth is a physician that studied various drugs and was also knowledgeable about the medical roots and herbs (Hawthorne 95). Even though Khan’s article was well written, with accurate facts to support his concept, is does not prove that Dimmesdale’s death was a result of him

The novel contradicts this theory because Chillingworth himself, has a sick soul. When he finds out that Hester has committed adultery and a baby resulted from it, Chillingworth becomes jealous. Throughout the novel, the evilness in him becomes stronger than ever. Chillingworth and Dimmesdale meet, and Chillingworth gets attached to minister Dimmesdale and wants to be his physician. Chillingworth looks into the personality of Dimmesdale, searching for secrets and thoughts that may provide information of who Hester’s lover is (Hawthorne 114). Chillingworth finds out that Dimmesdale is the secret lover of Hester. He then transforms in to an evil character with the goal of making Hester and Dimmesdale’s lives miserable. In the novel, Chillingworth and Hester discuss about who had mistreated who. Chillingworth says “I shall contrive aught against his life” (Hawthorne 70), his life meaning Dimmesdale’s. This refutes Khans theory because Chillingworth wanted Dimmesdale’s to live long, so he could make Dimmesdale suffer through