Chillingworth Villain Quotes

Villains come in all forms of malevolence throughout all types of literature. They help to drive the plot of the story and influence the themes and purposes as desired by the author. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character assigned the appellation of Roger Chillingworth is the main antagonist. He is first seen attending the public humiliation of Hester Prynne, who is the protagonist of the book. Chillingworth is established as a physician whom Hester had previously cheated on. Throughout the novel, Chillingworth is seen as being controlling over Arthur Dimmesdale, who testifies to one of the book’s main themes of guilt. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s historical drama The Scarlet Letter renders Roger Chillingworth as the villain who

This accurately reveals the initialization of Chillingworth’s deceptiveness to the people in order to meet his motives of learning about Hester and her involvement with whom she cheated with. It is these people, which Chillingworth so cleverly duped into believing his erroneous identity and vocation, that declare Chillingworth is to watch over Dimmesdale for the next seven years. One of Chillingworth’s tasks is to determine why Dimmesdale’s soul is so heavy and sin-filled. He suggests that, “a bodily disease, which we look upon as a whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment of the spiritual part,” (Hawthorne 128). In this context, with the use of the first-person plural, Dimmesdale is being victimized through the condescending nature of Chillingworth. In this sense, Chillingworth is victimizing Dimmesdale, subjecting him to the unfortunate notion which society places on the ailment of one’s soul; the notion that sin, the so-called ailment, on one’s soul is eminently malicious. In essence,

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