What does it mean to be considered a cold-blooded sinner? The dictionary defines a sinner as someone who is deeply depraved, evil, and bad. This is a spot-on description of Roger Chillingworth from The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the novel, Chillingworth is introduced as a vaguely recognized man in a town square. It is later discovered that he is the long-lost husband of the main character, Hester Prynne. Chillingworth, being the ruthless man he is, uses his resources as an unknown physician to commit the most unfathomable sins out of all of the characters in the novel. Roger Chillingworth’s occupation as a physician gives him the ideal resources needed to commit the sins he does. When Chillingworth is first noticed in the town …show more content…
Once Chillingworth finds out that Arthur Dimmesdale is Hester’s co-sinner, he begins plotting revenge. Chillingworth gets the job as Dimmesdale’s physician and instead of giving him the correct vitamins and herbs, he feeds him toxic substances that are slowly killing him. As Hawthorne narrates, “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” (203). This quote is especially true in the case of Chillingworth. It is evident that he is not a bad man; he is an ordinary man who has been blinded by his desire for revenge. Hawthorne describes Chillingworth as, “evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil” (158). Chillingworth used to be a loving, gentle husband, but has morphed into a revenge seeking, malicious …show more content…
Even though Hester and Dimmesdale have sinned gravely as well, there is a key difference between them and Chillingworth. Along with Hester, Dimmesdale feels guilty for his sin. The only reason he does not admit it is because he is naïve and fears judgment of her peers more than that of God. On the other hand, Chillingworth knows he has done wrong, but he doesn’t care and shows no remorse for his actions. Close to the end of the novel, Chillingworth says to Hester, “I have left thee to the scarlet letter….If that have not avenged me, I can do no more” (Hawthorne 161). Chillingworth is so ruthless and evil that he even desired revenge against his wife. Not only does he leave her to the scarlet letter, he makes sure it had fulfilled his desire. Lastly, at the very end of the novel, as Dimmesdale dies on the scaffold, he yells to Chillingworth, "May God forgive thee….Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!” (Hawthorne 240). Small things, such as this quote, emphasize to the reader how serious Chillingworth’s sins
The fact that revenge destroys both the victim and the seeker is another theme presented in the Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale is the victim of Chillingworth’s revenge upon Hester and whoever her lover happened to be. Dimmesdale, beside his self-inflicted harm was also not helped by the fact Chillingworth enjoyed watching him waste away. However, Chillingworth is also subject to this destiny as evidence by his change in the novel. Chillingworth was considered wise and aged in the beginning of the novel, although, later he is seen as being dusky and evil.
Roger Chillingworth’s suffering arose from a domino effect that he had no control of. Roger was merely a casualty of a sin that he had no partake in, but it turned his life upside down for the worse. The big punch that started Roger’s suffering was the affair between Hester and Dimmesdale. His suffering from this event was unlike the suffering it caused Hester and Dimmesdale as they suffered for their own sin, but Roger Chillingworth did not suffer from his own sin. Roger’s suffering comes directly from his own wife having a child with another man, an event he had no say or action in: “his young wife, you see, was left to mislead herself” (Hawthorne 97). Left all by herself Roger’s wife, Hester, mislead herself as no one was there to watch
This strategy exemplifies Hawthorne’s theme that sin must be taken responsibility for because being dishonest will only lead to more temptation. Chillingworth does admit to one of his blames of leaving Hester behind, but choosing his temptation over redemption has formed his obsession to making Hester lover’s suffer miserably with guilt, which fuels Roger’s vengeance. Secondly, Chillingworth’s internal conflict was illustrated through the changing of his appearance. Roger was once a kind, well respected, man of science; However, his vengeance has transformed his physical character into a devilish creature. When Hester and Pearl were visiting Governor’s Bellingham’s house, Hester notices the change over Roger’s features, “how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure misshapen” (93).
Mania is an excessive enthusiasm or desire, typically with a negative intention, and that is what Roger Chillingworth suffered from. Throughout the novel, he goes out of his way to make the life of Arthur Dimmesdale awful. He tortures Dimmesdale from the inside out, psychologically outsmarting him at every turn. Chillingworth claims that Hester is the reason he has acted so awfully, but it is not common for others to agree with him. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chillingworth’s deep desire for revenge is understandable, as he was a decent person before he found out about the affair, but then turned into a maniac in his quest to exact revenge on Dimmesdale.
When asked to describe Roger Chillingworth, peers say he was an upstanding, respectful, concerned citizen. They would have been right, but he didn’t let anyone know just how much he cared. With the loss of Hester, he became filled with anger and jealousy and eventually let his emotions overtake him. At the close of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the malevolent state of Roger Chillingworth’s heart made him the guiltiest.
As a respected physician, Chillingworth was “a man of skill in all Christian modes of physical science, and li... ... middle of paper ... ... powerful grip over him, dies peacefully, and Chillingworth dies soon after. To plot revenge in any situation is harmful. Chillingworth’s plot of revenge brings the downfall of Dimmesdale, as well as his own.
One of the various ways Chillingworth serves as the devil’s advocate is by being the antithesis of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the palpable Jesus figure of the narrative. Chillingworth keenly sets out to devastate Dimmesdale, as Hawthorne informs us when referring to Chillingworth's unearthing of Dimmesdale's secret, “All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving!” The capitalization of the words "Pitiless" and "Unforgiving" confirm that Chillingworth is Satan in human form. Symbolically, on an additional, more perceptible note, Chillingworth steals one of Dimmesdale's gloves and drops it on the scaffold in the middle of the town. The sexton returns it to Dimmesdale saying, "Satan...
It is far too easy for a reader of The Scarlet Letter to simply brand Chillingworth as evil. The reader must pay attention to the complexities of the position which Chillingworth is forced into to understand that he is not evil or bad, at least not completely. Chillingworth is only a human put into a terrible position which he reacts to. In fact, it is not beyond reach to say that under his circumstances, Chillingworth was actually the hero, the protagonist; and Hester and Dimmesdale are the true villains.
In the literary classic, The Scarlet Letter, readers follow the story of a Puritan New England colony and the characteristics of that time period. Readers begin to grasp concepts such as repentance and dealing with sin through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s indirect descriptions of these detailed and complex characters by their actions and reactions. The character Roger Chillingworth symbolizes sin itself and deals with internal conflict throughout the course of the story. The narrator describes Chillingworth in a critical attitude to reveal to the reader the significance of repentance and revenge by the use of many literary techniques such as
Chillingworth contributes to those of guilt and alienation. For example, Chillingworth expresses his own guilt through the ironic searching of Dimmesdale’s. “He had begun an investigation… with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous of truth… instead of human passions and wrongs inflicted upon himself,” (Hawthorne 121). It is conspicuous that Chillingworth, being engrossed in finding the truth of Dimmesdale and his adultery, which he observed through victimizing him, inflicted his own sin upon himself. However, Chillingworth does not only inflict guilt upon himself, but on Dimmesdale as well. The observable effects are “his inward trouble [which] drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred,” (Hawthorne 136). These effects, which Dimmesdale puts blame on his inward trouble, or sin, is caused in part by the victimization of Chillingworth towards him. Hence, Chillingworth has altered Dimmesdale’s original, clergy-like practices to those that are a derivative of sin and guilt. A testament of inflicted alienation upon Dimmesdale is seen in evidence brought up prior, on page 128 of The Scarlet Letter, “… a bodily disease, which we look upon as a whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be
Vengeance became Chillingworth’s primary motivation and driving force. (Hawthorn, 153) “Who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge”, “there was a fiend at his elbow”! These excerpts from the novel are included to express Chillingworth’s motivation and support from demons. (Reid, 253) "Chillingworth reacts to the sight of his wife with a child with a repulsion physically manifested as a 'writhing horror' that twists 'itself across his features, like a snake gliding swiftly over them.'”. This becomes the turning point of Chillingworth’s personality. Chillingworth was a once lost man, who hoped to start a family, then he transforms into an individual who is so cultivated in the idea of revenge that it is his only reason for his existence. (Reiss, 201) "Chillingworth does not want Arthur Dimmesdale to repent; the vengeful Chillingworth desires the minister to become more sinful, more hypocritical, as evidence of his damnation". The physician views himself as the martyr of an evil that the minister casted of him by destroying his hopes and dreams of having a family and uses that thought to bolster his
Chillingworth is trying to convince Dimmesdale not to confess he’s Hester’s lover because he’s afraid of losing his source of power. Once Dimmesdale refuses Chillingworth and confesses to everyone, “Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which the life seemed to have deported.” (Hawthorne p. 251) Chillingworth feels worthless and becomes lifeless once Dimmesdale confesses. It’s as if Chillingworth’s soul (or whatever was left of it) left his body and he became nothing. Chillingworth allowed his obsession to consume him so much that once he lost that source, he lost his life. After Dimmesdale’s death, Chillingworth shrivelled away because he no longer felt a need to stay. He’s described as, “This unhappy man [who] had made the very principle of his life to consist in the pursuit and systematic exercise of revenge, and when… there was no more devil’s work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanized mortal to betake himself whither his Master would find him tasks enough…” (Hawthorne p. 254) Chillingworth was wrapped in a cloak of corruption, and once his revenge was finished, he felt unfulfilled and empty. He allowed his obsession to become his only aspect in
...rth's crimes against the Lord are more malevolent than those committed by Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale. Chillingworth's quest for revenge and truth leads him down a path of sin, and in the Puritan perspective, down the path to Hell.
[INTRO] Chillingworth is the worst sinner because he committed blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, an unforgivable sin.
As the novel progressed, Chillingworth fits the profile of ‘vengeance destroys the avenger’. When Roger Chillingworth is first introduced to the reader, we see a kind old man, who just has planted the seeds for revenge. Although he did speak of getting his revenge, when Hester first met her husband in her jail cell, she did not see any evil in him. Because Hester would not tell him who she had slept with, Chillingworth vowed that he would spend the rest of his life having his revenge and that he would eventually suck the soul out of the man, whom she had the affair with. “There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares” (Hawthorne, 101) As the novel develops, Roger Chillingworth has centered himself on Arthur Dimmesdale, but he cannot prove that he is the “one.” Chillingworth has become friends with Dimmesdale, because he has a “strange disease,” that needed to be cured; Chillingworth suspects something and begins to drill Dimmesdale. “… The disorder is a strange one…hath all the operation of this disorder been fairly laid open to me and recounted to me” (Hawthorne, 156).