With a raging desire for knowledge and a single-minded pursuit of retribution, Chillingworth’s demonic actions lead him to damnation, demonstrating the need for reconciliation in times of conflict. Two Wrongs Make a Wrong Revenge. It exists within everyone. Pervading throughout all social relationships, revenge is damaging and detrimental to any hopes of reconciliation. Those who commit revenge are cowardly people unwilling to face the harsh realities of life. For the meek, vengeance pleasures the soul; however, it is only temporal. Like an addictive drug, revenge soothes anger and tension by sedating the mind with ephemeral comfort. Despite the initial relief, pain ensues and conditions seem worse than before. Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the non-violence movement in India, stated once that “an eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” There is no such thing as a sweet revenge. In a sense, revenge is slowly killing oneself and dragging another into death as well. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his novel The Scarlet Letter, evinces this reality in the eventual fate of Roger Chillingworth. Aroused by a vehement zeal for payback towards the Reverend Dimmesdale, Chillingworth drains the life out of himself, shown in his gradually decaying body and soul. With a raging desire for knowledge and a single-minded pursuit of retribution, Chillingworth’s demonic actions lead him to damnation, demonstrating the need for reconciliation in times of conflict. Chillingworth’s unquenched thirst for knowledge leads him to a state of vengeance, foreshadowing its eventual control over his actions. 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. For the last seven years of his life, his days were passed with a steadfast goal of creating torment for the man who sinned and hurt him the most. In this case, Hawthorne is the Aesop, and he strives to communicate the moral and truth about revenge. Like Mahatma Gandhi, Hawthorne indicates that revenge is a continual process—one act of revenge leads to more atrocious acts by the opposition, and in the end no one wins. The human mind has been deceived. Revenge is the trap we all fall into every once in a while. Humans just need to remember to be open towards each other with forgiving and receiving arms and to embrace the enemy with love, not hate.
this quote is when Chillingworth pretends to be a doctor so he can talk to Hester. He wants Hester to be dishonest by saying her husband is dead so no one will know him. He does not want anyone to know he is the husband to a sinful woman which is hypocritical because since they are married they should share equal ownership and be there for one another. He also told her he would follow her to England but yet he never did. Deceitfulness is shown in his character making him a bigger hypocrite because it shows he lacks honesty and contradiction of his feelings.
Throughout The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, fear is used as a control tactic. Fear escalates quickly through the responsible parties – Abigail Williams, Reverend John Hale, and Deputy Governor Danforth – and soon the town succumbs to it. Fear is not used by all of the responsible parties for control, as in controlling the people in order to be the “top dog” so to speak, but as a way to prevent their own accusation or conviction of witchcraft. They each used their own methods of creating fear in order to beat the stakes.
.... Chillingworth drives away his wife, and accelerates Dimmesdale's physical decay. Chillingworth never learns how to love anyone, and he never loved himself. He never was upset because Hester broke a sacred trust, but because her absconding of their vows was one more example to invalidate Chillingworth's existence. Chillingworth finally realizes the error of his ways at the end of the novel, and that why he leaves all of his property to Pearl. Chillingworth becomes aware of the vast emptiness of his soul, and how he has been torturing others to avoid dealing with his own tortured soul. Chillingworth attacked two people who loved each other, so he tries to make amends by helping the product of this love. Chillingworth dies a lonely man, but becomes righteous in the end.
"An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind"(Gandhi) An eye for an eye, or revenge, has been a theme that has shown up in many literary pieces throughout history. Although revenge is a common theme in many literary pieces, the reason and outcome of the revenge is often very varied. In “A Poison Tree” by William Blake shows that wrath left unattended will cause more damage oneself and others, in this case resulting in death, as it grows and develops into a form of revenge. In “The Cone” by H.G. Wells there is also a theme of revenge brought about by the entrapment of emotions leading to a revengeful death but this death results in the seeker of revenge feeling remorse. This essay will compare how the murderers in both “A Poison Tree” and “The Cone” feel about the deaths they’ve caused and how their emotions affect the overall theme of the text as a whole.
Some people, seek vengeance when they suffer a wrong. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character Roger Chillingworth is no exception, but the burden of his revenge becomes so heavy that it leads to a transformation of character that is unprecedented. Though at first a humble physician, Roger Chillingworth, slowly, through acts of his seeking revenge on his wife’s lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, he transforms into a parasitic leech, which eventually leads to his downfall.
Throughout the progression of the story, Chillingworth was a character whom the author characterized negatively. The author wrote Chillingworth as a man with “slight deformity of figure” (Hawthorne 57), implying that there were flaws within the character. Moreover, Chillingworth was noted as a character that “violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart” (Hawthorne 185). Overall, Chillingworth was depicted as an ominous figure, thus further suggesting that he is the principal villain of the book. However, it is also crucial to understand that Dimmesdale is as much of an antagonist as Chillingworth. Hawthorne provides subtle implications to reinforce the claim that Dimmesdale is the predominant villain. Throughout the story, Chillingworth did not contribute much to the plot other than to seek revenge. On the other hand, Dimmesdale embedded the five main themes of alienation, guilt, individual versus society, consequences of sin, and initiation to the story. Furthermore, Chillingworth was not a villain by choice, rather, he inevitably became a villain due to the actions of Dimmesdale. Prior to Dimmesdale’s influence, Chillingworth was a man who cared about the welfare of others. It was only after Dimmesdale’s affair with his wife that shifted Chillingworth’s motive for the worse. The juxtaposition between the past and present motives of Chillingworth manifests the idea that Dimmesdale held the utmost importance in the story: without Dimmesdale, Chillingworth would not be a
...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.
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.
Norms of Revenge. 4. Blackwell Publisher, 1990. 862. eBook. . Bar-elli, G. and Heyd, D. (1986), Can revenge be just or otherwise justified?.
By helping Dimmesdale, Hester realizes that she is not truly alone, and that realization saved her from becoming some prideless woman that she was not. As Hester regained her natural dignity, she claimed "The scarlet letter had not done its office" (Hawthorne 184) because it never destroyed her pride (Hawthorne 184). Hester became "determined to redeem her error" (Hawthorne 185) she was too prideful to let her past defy her future. Hester knew that in order to help Dimmesdale, she must first face Chillingworth and end his evil ways. When Hester confronts Chillingworth, he refuses to forgive Dimmesdale (Swisher 48), so Hester boldly decides to break her vow to Chillingworth and tell Dimmesdale who the physician really is. By deciding to do
Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale from the Scarlet Letter as a man ridden with guilt and hypocrisy to fulfill his role as a corrupt person. The author specifically uses guilt to exemplify Dimmesdale’s role as a culpable person. Dimmesdale’s guilt is represented through his constant chest pains, “On that spot, in very truth, there was, and there had long been, the gnawing and poisonous tooth of bodily pain,” (Hawthorne 102). Hawthorne utilizes this symbol throughout the novel to display the guilty and corrupt personality of Arthur Dimmesdale. The pain resembles the guilt and the sin that lurks his soul. Roger Chillingworth became stationed in Dimmesdale’s home in order to tend to his pains, and Chillingworth concluded that
The theme of revenge is found in both the novel The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller. Abigail Williams is seeking revenge on Elizabeth Proctor, and Roger Chillingworth wants the blood of the person that has been with Hester Prynne. These Characters do evil things to people in order to get what they want. Both characters end up losing and neither of them get what they want.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most famous piece of literature, The Scarlet Letter, is able to explain that secrets-- and the guilt associated with them-- possess the power to completely eradicate a person-- mentally and physically-- as well as their fundamental morals and character traits completely-- as exemplified through the character development of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, depicts the effects of an adulterous affair committed by a Puritan woman in seventeenth-century Boston, Massachusetts and the punishment she must endure. Hester Prynne, the heroine in the novel, assumes the role of the adulteress as she bears a child in the absence of her husband Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth, a man whose spite drives him to a mad pursuit of vengeance, seeks the deliberate destruction of the man he believes to have wronged him and avenges himself by preying on the accused man’s vitality. Chillingworth ultimately discovers the culprit is Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale and devotes his life to tormenting him psychologically, feeding on his frail mental state. Hawthorne presents
After finding out about his wife’s infidelity, Chillingworth takes steps to take revenge against Dimmesdale, in in doing to fulfilling his primal desires of curiosity and schadenfreude (pleasure derived from others pain) (Hawthorne 113). Chillingworth’s tormenting of Dimmesdale becomes “a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce though still calm, necessity…” (Hawthorne 113). What may once have been a repressed desire when Chillingworth was a student of medicine, has become a fully manifested action. Repressed desires are pushed down into the depths of the unconscious, where the Id resides, yet because Chillingworth is influenced so heavily by the Id, his innate desires are able to fully manifest themselves. In Puritan society, human desires are largely considered to be sinful, and so acting upon these desires is the literal enactment of sin. Chillingworth certainly portrayed as evil, even to the extent that Pearl, Hester’s daughter, who has an uncanny intuition, recognizes Chillingworth’s nature and warns her mother to “Come away, or yonder old Black man will catch you!” (Hawthorne 118). Chillingworth’s predisposition to his Id is, for the Puritans, a predisposition to