Essay On Chillingworth's Suffering

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Recommended: Critique of the scarlet letter

Mikaela Bunker
Ms. Whitcraft
English 9 MYP Hour 5
18 December 2016
Chillingworth's tortured soul
Suffering happens because of an inability to accept the loss of something or someone revered. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth lost his wife to another man. Chillingworth devotes what is left of his life to torturing that man whom he believes is more capable of providing happiness to his wife. Chillingworth's suffering is evident in his body and soul, formerly occupied with joy and love, but is now home to loathing and vengeance. The failure to accept his loss of love is what makes Chillingworth experience a pain worse than any other. Chillingworth lets his jealousy take over and that makes him weak but he is no devil. He is a misunderstood man who simply lost control of his own emotions.
Chillingworth was jealous of Dimmesdale because Hester chooses him. Chillingworth's emotional suffering originated when he comes home to see Hester standing on the scaffold being accused of adultery. According to systemoutlook.com, “If we could separate our emotional suffering from the problems that cause it, we would have no suffering as it doesn’t exist without a …show more content…

He leeches onto Dimmesdale's energy at an exponential rate which in turn drained his own energy.“Nothing was more remarkable than the change which took place, almost immediately after Mr. Dimmesdale's death, in the appearance and demeanor of the old man known as Roger Chillingworth. All his strength and energy--all his vital and intellectual force--seemed at once to desert him” (311). Chillingworth has unknowingly caused himself more suffering. So much of his being was devoted to psychologically torturing Dimmesdale that when he died, Chillingworth died too. Torturing Dimmesdale did not relieve Chillingworth from his suffering, it only inflamed his own tortured

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