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The scarlet letter roger chillingworth and reverend dimmesdale
Aspect we find in Roger Chillingworth the character of The Scarlet Letter
Aspect we find in Roger Chillingworth the character of The Scarlet Letter
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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
over her. This initial suffering only led to an extreme amount of rage and vengeance directed only at one person, the father of the child. This revenge that was on Rogers mind absolutely consumed him and it was quite apparent based on the change in actions and stature: “Roger Chillingworth had undergone a great physical change...At first, his expression had been calm, thoughtful, and studious. Now there was something ugly and evil in his face that those reasonable people hadn’t noticed before” (Hawthorne 199). His change throughout the story from being a scholar to the “Devil” show how rage and vengeance completely came over him, and took over. Roger’s suffering, besides the affair, stems only for his own lack of willpower to become the better man, and handle the situation in a different matter like moving on. Although having Roger’s wife cheat on him for another man is not his own choice, but his life being completely taken over by his own rage towards one individual was his choice. Therefore, Roger Chillingworth is not the greatest sufferer in the novel, unlike Dimmesdale, Roger could have dug himself out of the hole that he ultimately dug himself.
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.
Comparing between the sins of Hester Prynne, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, the reader can easily establish that Roger Chillingworth committed the greatest sin. He did this by being ruled by hatred and the feeling of vengeance.
The character of Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is one of many different faces. Hawthorne changes the character of Chillingworth during different periods of the novel. As Chillingworth's actions and his motives change, so in turn does the reader's opinion of him, which ranges from compassion to antipathy. Hawthorne keeps the character of Chillingworth an enigma, and Hawthorne uses his narrative to shed light on the true feelings of Chillingworth, as well through the good doctor's interaction with other characters, especially Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale. As we watch the plot evolve, and the reader observes Chillingworth's actions, Chillingworth's character continues to confuse the reader. This is because Chillingworth is empty. Roger Chillingworth is a vacant vessel in search of a captain. Chillingworth looks to validate his existence through his crusade. Chillingworth attempts to present himself as an upstanding, righteous, religious man only in search of justice. This righteousness is only one layer, underneath his façade is hatred, and underneath that is a deep sense of self loathing. Chillingworth hates who he is, so in an attempt to appease his own sense of self, Chillingworth attacks others in order to transfer his loathing from himself to Hester, Pearl, and Dimmesdale.
Chillingworth’s anger and want of revenge was getting too much for him; he decided to put some real action into play. Chillingworth had decided on the perfect plan. A plan to make Hester suffer the most. A plan to kidnap and take Pearl away from her. Chillingworth decided to kidnap Pearl and sell her to another country. After he got Pearl away from Hester he moved to phase two in his plan to destroy Hester.
The world of Puritan New England, like the world of today, was filled with many evil influences. Many people were able to withstand temptation, but some fell victim to the dark side. Such offences against God, in thought, word, deed, desire or neglect, are what we define as sin (Gerber 14).
The physician both gave life to and leeched life from Reverend Dimmesdale. Within chapter nine of “The Scarlet Letter”, the reader is introduced to the true nature of Mr. Roger Chillingworth. At the beginning of the novel a rather different man is presented to the audience. The author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, employs his superior understanding of allusion, irony, and metaphor to reveal the true intentions of the character.
Guilt is a very strong emotion, and it can take a merciless toll on a person. For most people, guilt is often a short-lived feeling because we confess why we feel guilty and get it off of our chests. However, this is hardly the case for Arthur Dimmesdale, the father of Hester Prynne’s child in the novel The Scarlet Letter. Dimmesdale does not confess that he has committed a sin with Hester, and for a brutal seven whole years, he withholds his guilt inside of him. Throughout all of that time, he reverts to self-punishment in the form of fasting, consecutive, sleepless vigils, and relentless studying of the Bible. The public viewed all of these activities as noble acts of devotion to God, and they only admired him more and more. This public veneration just made him feel like he was even more of a horrible person and that his whole life was based upon a lie. Also, Dimmesdale was faced to live with and be tormented by not only his overwhelming guilt of sin, but was moreover forced to live with Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, who plagued him almost as much as his own conscience. These are all reasons why I believe that Dimmesdale suffers most out of any main character in this novel.
It is because his pain needs compared to Hester’s. His choice needs to have its alternate. The reader needs to see what could have happened if Dimmesdale had chosen another path, had chosen his second option, or vice versa. Nathaniel Hawthorne perfectly intertwines the two characters. Arthur Dimmesdale, a perfect, religious clergyman that the people of the community believe to be an angel sent to guide them into the promised land and Hester Prynne, the young woman of the community that slept with someone other than her husband and is looked down upon by every person and even heaven itself. Every character needs its opposite. Arthur and Hester are not the good guys and Roger Chillingworth is not their opposite. Roger is just a character needed to move the story along; a character needed to bring the opposites together into one. The story moves around Hester and him. No one wants to read a story about a girl that got knocked up, they want to read one where her lover gets into as much trouble as she
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).
In the excerpt, the reason being for Dimmesdale action of exclaiming to Chillingworth that he can not save him, in addition revealing his sin with Hester to the public, is as a result of being no longer able to hold the burden of the hidden sin he shares with Hester. Not to mention, by revealing himself publicly as the one who committed adultery and sharing the punishment of sin with Hester seems to relieve him as his agony and is a reason for his action. Furthermore, the reason for his action of revealing his sin publicly and to Chillingsworth, is as a result of being tired of living miserably, due to the heavy sin he carried, and as a result of his confession he now feels saved. Even more, the reason being of his action of exclaiming to
Roger Chillingworth is Hester’s husband, and an eminent scholar. After seeing Hester in disgrace and refusal to identify her fellow sinner, Chillingworth vows to find out who Hester’s fellow sinner is and punish him, which he eventually does. As indicated by his name, Roger Chillingworth brings a “chill” to Dimmesdale’s life, freezing Dimmesdale’s soul and endlessly tormenting him. Chillingworth represents Unpardonable Sin, because he sets himself up as God, punishing Dimmesdale for sinning with his wife. Just as the others physically change to mirror their internal transformation, so too does Chillingworth. He becomes more demonic as the novel progresses, morphing from a curious scholar to a caricature of the devil. Even Hester pondered “whether
We all know that in the book The Scarlet Letter, the character Roger Chillingworth is Hester’s husband from long ago. Hester cheated on him, so his existence now is revolved around torturing the man who got Hester pregnant (shown on page 87). It is revealed later in the story that Dimmesdale is the father of the child, and Roger soon catches on. They move in together and Dimmesdale’s health seems to be on a snowballing decline. Why is this? It’s because Roger Chillingworth is a homosexual vampire. I know it’s highly implausible, but Roger did move in with Dimmesdale to “care for him,” he seemed to suck the life out of him as time went on, and he seemed to always be secluded.
The Scarlet Letter takes place in the mid 17th century, in a puritan community of present day Boston, but back then known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The story is centered around protagonist, Hester Prynne, and her ventures through her penance for committing adultery and the revenge that her husband Roger Chillingworth takes against the other member of Hester’s affair: Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale, for committing such a sin he feels an overwhelming amount of guilt. He deals with his guilt by tormenting himself physically and psychologically, developing a heart condition as a result. Roger Chillingworth, once discovering that Dimmesdale is the father of Hester’s illegitimate child, adds to the poor man's suffering by psychologically tormenting the reverend for many years, until Dimmesdale dies as a result of the crushing guilt. Roger Chillingworth, on his deathbed, leaves his large fortune to Pearl, Hester and Arthur's daughter. This action may
Toward the end of the story, Hester observes Chillingworth thoroughly and acknowledges the different man he has become as they converse in the woods. Before Hester moved to America, she was living in Europe with Chillingworth and they were married. But now that they have reunited, she finally realizes how unhappy she was when they were together and just how evil he has become due to her actions. At this moment in the story, Hester has not admitted who the father of her child is but she is aware that Chillingworth knows exactly who it is. The imagery in this scene portrays Chillingworth as the devil walking through the streets of their Puritan society.
The act of suffering is a fundamental aspect of human life. Nathaniel Hawthorne ensures that his characters in The Scarlet Letter exemplify many different types of suffering, as well as how to cope with this condition. Hester Prynne, one of the main protagonists of the story, gives birth to a beautiful daughter out of wedlock. This occurrence within the Puritan society is highly frowned upon, and every measure is taken to show Hester that her infidelity is not approved of in the eyes of God. Hester Prynne suffered beneath the heaviness of the patriarchy as a single mother marked by the distinct letter “A”, signifying adultery, who had to carry the weight of her own immoralities as well as Dimmesdale’s.