Roger Prynne or better known as Roger Chillingworth is Hester‘s husband. Once he arrives at the town Hester is in, he becomes an educated physician, at least that is what he tells everyone. He is also considered as the antagonist. He appears to be well educated and very much older then Hester. Roger Chillingworth‘s biggest weakness is that he has this strong urge for revenge on Hester‘s lover, Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Mr. Chillingworths strength is also his biggest weakness. Another strength that he has is a compulsion to lie. He has lied to everyone in his town about who he is a what he does. His grasp on the Reverend can also count as one of his strengths. He is a mass manipulator by his own doings. His weakness is leaving his wife all alone in a new, strange country and having her fend for herself and in the time being, she fell for the Reverend and conceived a child with him. …show more content…
He actually does so, slowly over the years he has manipulated the Revered mentally and physically by pretending to be his doctor. Mr. Chillingworth thoughts are not clear but in his actions it shows what his intentions are. He wants to harm the Reverend but does not seek to harm Hester. He feels that it is his fault that Hester now has to live the life she is living. But he feels Mr. Dimmesdale could‘ve prevented that, but since he didn‘t Mr. Chillingworth has evil thoughts about plotting revenge against the Reverend. The manner of Mr. Chillingworth could come off as very dominate. Everyone else can see through him in a way. At first they all praised him and thought he was worthy. Then slowly his true colors started showing. They saw his way of manipulations. Then he started getting nicknames. One being Leech, because he was a
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
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).
Years ago, Hester promised Chillingworth to keep his identity a secret, thus allowing him to do evil to Dimmesdale. Chillingworth believes that it was his fate to change from a kind man to a vengeful fiend. He believes that it’s his destiny to take revenge and thus would not stop until he does so.
Chillingworth states, “What should ail me to harm this misbegotten and miserable babe? The medicine is potent for good.” (4:42) Although Hester believes that Chillingworth may be trying to poison Pearl, she allows him to administer the medicine to her. Shortly thereafter, the novel states that “it soon proved its efficacy, and redeemed the leech’s pledge.” (4:42) This is a direct affirmation from the book that Chillingworth was helping Pearl and Hester. His resentment is directed towards Dimmesdale, as he is the one who caused Hester to have an affair. However, even in his insanity, he was still able to help Pearl. This further shows that he has a good character, and that the only thing causing his bad temper is his distress over Hester’s
Roger Chillingworth himself represents revenge. Some even believe him to be representative of evil or Satan. What is ignored in the cases of interpreting him as Satan or as evil is the fact that he has been cruelly wronged by both Hester and Dimmesdale. Because Hester and Dimmesdale are portrayed as protagonists in the novel, Chillingworth is automatically classified, because of his opposition towards the two, as antagonist. He is not actually this at all when regarded without the negative connotations under which he is crushed within the book.
The third main character, Roger Chillingworth, is a pretty innocent man in the beginning of this book. He comes to America to be reunited with his wife, Hester, but soon comes to find out that she has committed adultery.
Nearly every character in The Scarlet Letter has a major character flaw, and the flaws that these characters have build the story. If none of the characters in this novel had flaws, then the story wouldn’t have the drama and suspense that it has currently. The character in The Scarlet letter that has the most noticeable flaw is Roger Chillingworth. Roger Chillingworth is the Husband of Hester Prynne and the physician of Arthur Dimmesdale, and Arthur Dimmesdale is the lover of Hester Prynne. This love triangle is what caused Chillingworth’s main character flaw. Even though Chillingworth admits to Hester that he shouldn’t have married her because she was too young and beautiful for him, he still holds a grudge against Dimmesdale. Chillingworth becomes very evil and obsessed with revenge; he is also described as a leech throughout the story because he leeches off of Dimmesdale’s soul. Chillingworth is jealous that Hester slept with someone else and he wants revenge on whoever did it. The problem here is that Chillingworth seems to blame Dimmesdale completely, when Hester is as equally guilty as Dimmesdale is. Chilling worth tells Hester that he will be able to tell who pearls father is by reading his heart, this also brings irony into the novel because Chillingworth is Dimmesdale’s physician and since Dimmesdale is constantly holing his chest in pain, it gives Chillingworth’s
In the final chapters of the story, Hester Prynne begins to clearly acknowledge and express her hatred of Roger Chillingworth. Hester comes to realize that she is not nearly as sinful as Chillingworth, despite her unfaithfulness and her public ignominy, and that she abhors him for his crimes against her. In the imagery in this scene, Hester demonstrates Chillingworth’s connections to death, opposition to virtuousness, and the Devil; which, in turn, serve to clarify Chillingworth’s position as Hester’s antagonist and moral opposite.
Also Chillingworth tries very hard to find out who her secret lover is and even tries asking Hester. “‘ Thou wilt not reveal his name? Not the less he is mine,’ resumed he , with a look of confidence , as if destiny were at one with him” ( Hawthorne 70). This quote says that Chillingworth tries to ask Hester who her secret lover is and even though she refuses to answer him, he feels confident that he will find out. This means that Chillingworth is going to harm her secret lover after he finds him. Therefore he will do whatever he can to torture him and get 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
When the reader first meets Roger Chillingworth standing watching Hester on the scaffold, he says that he wishes the father could be on the scaffold with her. “‘It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side” (46). At this point, Chillingworth wishes that Mr. Dimmesdale was also receiving the sort of shame Hester is being put through. Throughout the first few chapters of the novel, however, Chillingworth’s motives become more and more malicious. By the time Chillingworth meets Hester in her prison cell, he has decided to go after Mr. Dimmesdale’s soul. Chillingworth turns to this goal because Mr. Dimmesdale did not endure Hester’s shame on the scaffold. Had Mr. Dimmesdale chosen to reveal himself at the time of Hester’s shame, he would not have had to endure the pain of Roger Chillingworth’s tortures of his soul.
Roger Chillingworth utilizes his deceptiveness in a number of occasions throughout the novel. For example, in chapter three, Roger Chillingworth innocently approaches Hester Prynne, acting as if he has never once seen her. Roger Chillingworth even interrogates a local townsman about Hester Prynne and her committed sins. This shows that Roger Chillingworth purposely intends to concept a deceptive knowledge of his character in order to disconcert one who may read The Scarlet Letter. Although Roger Chllingworth is the foremost antagonist of the novel, his deceptiveness empowers him to withhold an excessive amount of moral ambiguity. With this moral ambiguity, Roger Chillingworth is able to surreptitiously accomplish a various amount of things, including the death of Arthur Dimmesdale himself.
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, both Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth are both very strong willed, in more ways than one. Throughout the story, and especially the first few chapters, Hester’s loyalty to her lover shows as her most strongest feature and is as bold as the scarlet letter sitting upon her bosom. Although it sets her back way more than it did her any good (keeping in mind the magistrate said that her lover should stand on the scaffold with her), Hester stood her ground for the one she loves, or did love at one point in time. Going on to Roger Chillingworth, he was not one to give up easily. For one, after many many years of being away at sea, he still managed to make it back to see his wife. However, though, this is pretty much as far as the similarities go. Hester is more of a hot, in the moment kind of person. Roger is detached and cold, strong will and determination probably the only two characteristics making him human.
...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.
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).