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The scarlet letter character development
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Imagine a man having insecurities of his own, with a somewhat deformed and unpretentious appearance, finding that his spouse had betrayed him. For Roger
Chillingworth, it was a completely heart-breaking devastation. In The Scarlet
Letter, Chillingworth is the husband of Hester Prynne. When they married, he knew that she didn't love him, but still proceeded to commit the rest of his life to her. Consequently, a story of forbidden passion, hatred, and jealousy unfolds.
Starting off as a scholar, Roger Chillingworth finds himself in a doctor's position later in the book. His back is deformed, and one shoulder is higher than the other, giving him a hunchbacked appearance. Chillingworth is not physically attractive and very slender. His eyes have a 'strong, penetrating power,'; (Chpt. 10, p. 157) and he is a loner. 'Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man.'; (p. 157, Chpt. 10) He enjoys studying and the pursuit of knowledge.
When Chillingworth finds out that Hester cheated on him, he cannot be blamed for being dismayed and livid. He feels betrayed, and calls Hester's sin unpardonable. His rage quickly becomes resentment, and he develops a strong desire to find out with whom Hester had an affair with. Chillingworth seeks nothing but revenge. When Arthur Dimmesdale defends Hester and her actions,
Chillingworth begins his suspicion.
Chillingworth quickly becomes determined to withdraw the truth from
Dimmesdale, who in fact was the man for whom Hester had betrayed him. The spite Chillingworth feels towards Dimmesdale grows stronger as his suspicion about Hester and Dimmesdale seems more and more likely. Chillingworth plans his vengeance during all of his waking hours. He becomes close to Dimmesdale, hoping maybe he would get a confession, but it didn't happen. The two soon lived together, while Chillingworth still prodded. From then on, Dimmesdale's life became miserable. 'Roger Chillingworth's aspect had undergone a remarkable change while he had dwelt in town, and especially since his abode with Mr.
Dimmesdale. At first his expression had been calm, meditative, and scholar-like. "Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they [people of the town] had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him.'; (Chpt. 9, p. 155) While pretending to be Dimmesdale's trusted confidant and physician, Chillingworth is actually slaying him by means of medicine and mental torture.
Roger Chillingworth’s main internal conflict was his personal revenge towards Arthur Dimmesdale. Roger is a dynamic character who changes from being a caring and mindful doctor to a dark creature enveloped in retaliation. His character possesses a clear example of the result when a person chooses sin by letting his vengeance get the better of him. For example, Roger constantly asks Hester to tell him who has caused her punishment. As Roger visits Hester at the prison, he is determined to find out who Hester’s lover was, “...few things hidden from the man, who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of mystery” (64).
Roger Chillingworth's features begin to display his inward deformities externally as the novel progresses due to his attempts at finding the man who violated his marriage. When he is first seen in the novel, "there was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens." He also has a left shoulder which is slightly higher than the right originally, which only gets more ugly and misshapen with the rest of his body. Chillingworth then takes up residence with Dimmesdale and begins his quest to punish the minister and find out the true identity of this man. After he begins his quest the townspeople observe "something ugly and evil in his face which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him.” Soon his wife, Hester, finds "the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished and been succeeded by an eager searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look."
Chillingworth’s life’s purpose dies along with Dimmesdale. His strength and energy leaves him as he “shrivelled away.” He has made it his life's goal to get revenge on the man who had ruined his life but now that very person was no longer in the world. He wanted to punish Hester’s lover and Pearl’s father, who had wronged him too. With him gone, Chillingworth had no purpose to live and slowly withered away and died.
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.
Chillingworth is also a sinner because he pretends to be a physician when he really isn?t and takes that role to torture Reverend Dimmesdale. Chillingworth tortures Dimmesdale slowly by hurting him both physically and mentally. During this time he pretends to take care of him in which he really isn?t. Hawthorne writes, ?Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was ? a quiet depth of malice ? but active now, in this unfortunate old man ? imagine a more intimate revenge ? upon an enemy.
The main point of Dr. Kahn’s article is to prove that Chillingwrorth wanted to kill Dimmesdale through the use of atropine poisoning, but there are many parts in the novel that suggest Chillingworth wanted to keep Dimmesdale alive to suffer through his own guilt. Evidence exists very early in the novel that deems Dr. Kahn’s theory untrue. During Chillingworth and Hester’s talk about who had wronged whom. Chillingworth says “…I shall contrive aught against his life…';(Hawthorne 70). Speaking of Dimmesdale, Chillingworth goes on to say, “…he be a man of fair repute'; (Hawthorne 70). This passage alone shows...
Roger Chillingworth’s reputation as a good doctor becomes more evident when the townspeople see him as a savior to Arthur Dimmesdale, and encourage both of them to live together.
The image of Roger Chillingworth is much like the image of pastor Dimmesdale: both characters sharpen one leading trait. But if in Arthur Dimmesdale we found some contradictions and changes in the nature which allowed us to judge him not as a single line diagram, then Roger is an absolute and complete embodiment of revenge and nothing more. We do not know what kind of person Chillingworth was before he returned to Boston, we didn’t know anything about his pastimes and position in life. All that we know is his fierce vindictive character. From the first page ,he speaks only of vengeance
Roger Chillingworth is completely baffled by both his patient’s condition and his state of mind. He works around the clock, making medicines and tending to Dimmesdale’s needs. One day, the reverend asks Chillingworth where he found an unusually dark, flabby herb. The doctor replies that he found them growing on an unmarked grave, and implies that the weeds are a result of a “hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime” (74). This sparks a conversation about confession and sin. Dimmesdale argues that there are various reasons for keeping one’s sin a secret, such as that no good will come from revealing the truth. Chillingworth replies that these people are only deceiving themselves and
2. Dimmesdale sensed that there was something evil lurking around him, something that was causing him trouble, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He doubted the old physician a few times due to his slightly strange and questionable acts. However, he ignored all his doubts and fears of Chillingworth. He continued to talk with him as though there was nothing wrong. Dimmesdale believed that his guilt was causing his sickness as well as him to distrust and fear everyone. He continued his normal attitude and discussions with Chillingworth believing his doubts to be false.
Chillingworth committed the worst sin out of all of them. He wanted to get back at Dimmesdale so he was trying to commit revenge. In fact his punishment for this was watching Dimmesdale dye but not by any fault of his own but by the secret he had kept from everyone else. Chillingworth fate was to dye knowing what happened and be able to do anything about it because he is a cold-hearted evil man.
& nbsp ; Torturing his soul. A good side of Chillingworth's torturing Dimmesdale had emerged. The doctors actions led Dimmesdale to come to reality, and face the music. He opened up and took responsibility of Hester and Pearl. Dimmesdale stopped avoiding them and learned to be a fatherly figure for Pearl.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne analyzes Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. In the story, Hester is the main character of the story and was called Mistress Prynne (Hawthorne 70). Dimmesdale, in the story was referred to as Reverend Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 90). Chillingworth was originally named, Roger Prynne but later in the story he changed his name to Roger Chillingworth. In the story, Hester committed adultery with Dimmesdale against Chillingworth and in the beginning she got punished and sent to prison and later she got to get out of prison but with the exception of having to wear the letter A on her breast every time she went out in to town.
When Dimmesdale confessed to the crowd on Election Day, Chillingworth pleaded with him not to tell. “Old Roger Chillingworth knelt down beside him, with a blank, dull countenance, out of which life seemed to have departed. Thou hast escaped me…thou hast escaped me! He repeated more than once.” (Hawthorne, 268). Once Dimmesdale had confessed and died, Chillingworth had nothing to live for. “At old Roger Chillingworth’s decease (which took place within the year).” (Hawthorne, 272). Revenge destroys the avenger, fits the life of Roger Chillingworth. He devoted his entire life to revenge, and what happiness did he have to show for it? Had Chillingworth not been so jealous, he might have had a better life to live.
Chillingworth is openly confessing his motives and actions of vengeance against Dimmesdale and is so wrapped up in his sin that there is no hope of Chillingworth forgiving Dimmesdale.