Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes

Revenge is a complex word seen throughout The Scarlet Letter. Having a different meaning in the real life than in the novel.  Revenge is to exact punishment or expiation for a wrong on behalf of something , especially in a resentful or vindictive spirit. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, interprets  revenge as something Chillingworth seeks against Dimmesdale which lead him to learn that revenge is an otherworldly, spiritual concern, and better left to God. Once pursuing his own revenge only led him to find his own punishment for his presumption. Even though Chillingworth seems absolutely evil, while seeking his revenge. There is still something about his character that illustrates goodness still reside within him.
    When

meeting with this character shown in The Scarlet Letter. We find him to be a normal visitor in Boston, which we later find out it is Hester’s husband. We later learn from Hetser that the human before her is not the same person she married  years before.

She describes him showing a part of his personality that we had not seen yet. “It was not so much that he had grown older[...] But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm, and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look [...] In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office”(Hawthorne 160).Giving a perspective that once before Hester becoming an adulterer and being with him, he was a totally different person. Which she further on illustrates that she is shocked to see him this way. Having no idea that a loving, kind, sweet person could transform to what she refers as to the “Devil” himself.  Giving the insinuation or feeling that such an event as Hester committing adultery can transform someone dramatically. Which give that inference that he could not totally changed.

As people change, but a part of their old selves remain. With an example being Hester herself when she is accused of adultery she changed drastically. She covers herself up, her hair, while becoming more kind, and helpful. Causing even the community to change the meaning of her scarlet letter from “adultery” to “able”. Once  meeting with Dimmesdale at the forest and talking about the assumption if “fleeing” she return to her old self. She released her hair for the light to shine on. Expressing that even though she had changed she still had her old self inside her, and it was the right moment to show it. This can be the same case for Chillingworth. He might be seen as a jealous person seeking revenge, but there are two points of views.
    It is correct Chillingworth does he seek revenge against Dimmesdale. Why doesn't he go against Hester and Pearl also? He answered this question by stating that would let the scarlet letter do to job. “I have left thee to the scarlet letter[...] If that have not avenged me[him], I [he] can do no more!”(163). He seems truly evil to say does words toward her being his wife. He expresses what Hester would say as” evil”. Is he truly evil,or being ashamed of having a wife that betrayed him? Everyone is ashame including Dimmesdale. He didn't say he was Pearl’s father until the very end, not only because he was scared of being killed. As he left Hester and Pearl at God’s mercy after he died. He wished to inflict pain toward Dimmesdale himself. Chillingworth had to witness Heaters and Pearls suffering, even though it was not explicit. He saw Hester being isolated from the community being judged, and Pearl as well. Hester has Pearl as her only true companion and Pear has her mother as well as nature. Some might infer that he wished to sick revenge against Dimmesdale for not only punishing him for his sin with Hester, but by letting them suffer even more. Dimmesdale let his own child be isolated from the community and judged as a little “demon”. Leading him to see that he is the only right person to  punish Dimmesdale for his sin, and suffering to them even if he did not mean to do so. The problem would be that he did not do anything about it. Making Chillingworth seem not as a totally evil person, but as a misunderstood character. Opening a gap of ways to find if he is really being misunderstood.
After Dimmesdale’s death, chillingworth dies, seeming as his only purpose of him being alive was to punish Dimmesdale.

“At old Roger Chillingworth’s decease (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr.Wilson were executors, he  bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here [Boston] and in England, to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne”(Hawthorne 247). As a fairy tale with the heroes purpose to complete his goal and finish the story. Once dead, he leaves a good amount of money and land to little Pearl. Assuring a good future to her. By doing so he redeems himself in a sort of way with his final act. Expressing that he might act as the “devil” himself but still has some goodness within him. If he was not, he would not have done what he did before dying. He could have died and not given it to anyone, but instead he did not. As he had discovered punishment for his presumption when he decided to pursue his own revenge against Dimmesdale. When Dimmesdale escapes his grasps going to the scaffold to confess his sin. Chillingworth is inflicted as this happens. He already knows that evil has consumed him, and torturing Dimmesdale is his only reason for living. “At this instant, old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd-or,perhaps so dark, disturbed and evil, was his look, he rose up out of some nether region-to snatch back his victim from what he sought to

do!”(239).Since the beginning Chillingworth has been seen as a symbol for the devils deeds. Acting out of pain, and revenge. The pain he felt once seeing Hester Prynne on the scaffold being humiliating for committing adultery and her lover getting away from it. Revenge, to punish Hester’s lover, Dimmesdale, for letting Hester and Pearl suffer publicly and taking away his wife’s heart. It is true that Chillingworth decisions were wrong to accomplish his revenge, but he is in the right to feel emotions, such as anger. He might represent a symbol of evil as Hawthorne intended but he is also human. Being so, he can feel pity and regret, leading him to give Pearl all his possessions and redeem himself in this final act.
Chillingworth chose his own path, revenge, a road of inflicting pain in others until you are satisfied. In doing so he receives his own punishment for doing so, as karma. Once noticing the monster he had become by seeing Dimmesdale escape him. He knew that he had so much importance on his revenge that it was the only thing keeping him alive. Finding regret, he redeem himself by trying to leave Pearl all his possessions. Expecting it will help them in some certain way than he could ever. Expressing that he still has some goodness within him