The Evil Characters in The Scarlet Letter

842 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Critical Analysis of the Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter, a book of sin and guilt, reveals two characters that are so purely evil, that it is hard to believe that such characters could be created---Roger Chillingworth and
Mistress Hibbins. Chillingworth and Hibbins may seem like good people, but they really just symbolize evil.
Roger Chillingworth is the elderly husband of Hester
Prynne, who is shunned by the whole colony of Boston
Massachusetts for the sin of adultery she has committed with the town’s praised minister. The people of the colony see
Chillingworth as a friendly physician who was sent by God to return people like Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s praised minister, back to health. However, as the book goes on he is known as something entirely different. Chillingworth is a person who is driven by vengeance and is determined to find out who the father of Hester’s daughter is. A particular scene reveals this, as Chillingworth attempts to give Hester a prescription to help her sleep and Hester accuses him of trying to kill her, “Dost thou know me so little, Hester Prynne? Are my purpose wont to be so shallow? Even if I imagine scheme of vengeance, what could I do better for my object than to let thee live?” (Hawthorne p.
50) Chillingworth is saying that because of Hester’s sin, she is shunned by everyone and that the shame will remain with her and haunt her for the rest of her life. Everyday of her life is full of suffering and Chillingworth wants her to live so she can suffer in the worst way possible and that is to let her live. In addition, Chillingworth says, “I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly ad unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine!” (p. 52) His drive of revenge is so powerful that the soul of Hester’s lover, will be his forever. In the same ...

... middle of paper ...

...ymbolize “The Black Man.” Chillingworth isn’t the only one that has an evil spirit. Mistress Hibbins is known for riding with “The Black Man” in the forest on a horse because of her sinister ways---the ways of a witch. Both Mistress Hibbins and
Chillingworth were expected to be good people, yet they turned out to be the most hideous characters of The Scarlet Letter.
Though the appearance of Roger Chillingworth started out as the kind and friendly physician, he was so purely evil and driven by revenge that it twisted his mind into something horrible. Though
Mistress Hibbins was the sister of such an important person who loved God, she was basically the wicked witch of “The Black
Man.” Therefore, people aren’t always what they seem and though the people around them are righteous, it doesn’t mean that they will be.

Works Cited

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne

Show More
Related

  • Scarlet Letter Deception Quotes

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    The quote in Chapter 20 of The Scarlet Letter applies to Roger Chillingworth for numerous reasons. Roger Chillingworth is first introduced as an strange man with a humped back and deformed shoulders, who is a kind of creepy looking individual who recently arrived to the town. Once he arrives he makes eye contact with Hester and she knew it was her husband, the man who sent her to America alone. He tells people “I am a stranger,and have been a wanderer,sorely against my will.I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk to the southward…”(69-70) The fact that Chillingworth does not reveal his true identity illustrates that maybe he is going to to revoke revenge upon Hester and whoever she committed adultery with. When Roger Chillingworth came to the jail cell to help baby Pearl and Hester, he offered her and Pearl medicine, she was hesitant to drink it. But when he sees her hesitation he responds with “Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance,what could I do better for my object than to let thee live”(82) Even though Chillingworth didn’t directly say he's planning his

    Read More

  • Chillingworth's Dishonest Quotes

    105 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Chillingworth's Revenge Quotes

    611 Words  | 2 Pages

    After Hester is caught for adultery she is trialled for her punished. “ This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die, Is there not law for it?” ( Hawthorne 47). The quote says she has committed a serious crime and people want her to die. This means that people are going to ashamed for knowing Hester. The fact that she makes people feel ashamed demonstrates that Chillingworth would not want people to know he is Hester’s husband and even that he knows her. Therefore he wants to get his justice back by finding out who her lover is.

    Read More

  • Free College Essays - Hidden Sin in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    1259 Words  | 3 Pages

    Roger Chillingworth's features begin to display his inward deformities externally as the novel progresses due to his attempts at finding the man who violated his marriage. When he is first seen in the novel, "there was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens." He also has a left shoulder which is slightly higher than the right originally, which only gets more ugly and misshapen with the rest of his body. Chillingworth then takes up residence with Dimmesdale and begins his quest to punish the minister and find out the true identity of this man.  After he begins his quest the townspeople observe "something ugly and evil in his face which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him.” Soon his wife, Hester, finds "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."

    Read More

  • Dimmesdale's Guilt and Internal Struggle in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    1043 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Chillingworth Villain Quotes

    1479 Words  | 3 Pages

    Villains come in all forms of malevolence throughout all types of literature. They help to drive the plot of the story and influence the themes and purposes as desired by the author. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character assigned the appellation of Roger Chillingworth is the main antagonist. He is first seen attending the public humiliation of Hester Prynne, who is the protagonist of the book. Chillingworth is established as a physician whom Hester had previously cheated on. Throughout the novel, Chillingworth is seen as being controlling over Arthur Dimmesdale, who testifies to one of the book’s main themes of guilt. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s historical drama The Scarlet Letter renders Roger Chillingworth as the villain who

    Read More

  • Morally Ambiguous Characters in The Scarlet Letter

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Character Development in The Scarlet Letter

    572 Words  | 2 Pages

    Authors use character development to show how a person can change. Through a descriptive portrayal of a charter and their development they become real to the reader. A well-developed character stirs up emotions in the reader making for a powerful story. A person can change for better or worse and Nathaniel Hawthorne shows this thru the character development of Hester, Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Archetypal Symbolism In The Scarlet Letter

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    Pearl from The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne represents the archetypal form of the loner. She is the daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale and represents the scarlet letter with her mom who was banished for committing adultery. Leonce from The Awakening by Kate Chopin represents the archetypal form of the ruler. He is the husband of Edna Pontellier and he views her more like property than an actual human being. Pearl and Leonce represent the archetypal form of the loner and the ruler in the different societies that they both live in, their relationship with other people, and how they change throughout the story.

    Read More

  • The Worst Sinner in The Scarlet Letter

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter illustrates that the illumination of self-deception gapes open after one like the very jaws of hell. This is apparent through all the main characters of the novel. Although Hawthorne's work has several imperfect people as the main characters, including Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, the worst sinner is Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth commits the greater sin because of his failure to forgive; he has an insatiable appetite for revenge; he receives extreme pleasure in torturing Dimmesdale. Hester Prynne, however, has committed sins of almost the same magnitude.

    Read More

  • Revenge in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Justice Explored in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    Nathaniel Hawthorne created themes in The Scarlet Letter just as significant as the obvious ideas pertaining to sin and Puritan society. Roger Chillingworth is a character through which one of these themes resonates, and a character that is often underplayed in analysis. His weakness and path of destruction of himself and others are summed up in one of Chillingworth's last sentences in the novel, to Arthur Dimmesdale: "Hadst thou sought the whole earth over... there were no place so secret, no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me, save on this very scaffold!" (171).

    Read More

  • The Scarlet Letter Chapter 14

    529 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first chapter sets the scene for the novel: Boston, during the seventeenth century. During this period, religion is the foundation for both the laws and the society. We are introduced to the town's cemetery and nearby prison. Next to the prison grows a wild rosebush. We can think of the wild rosebush as representing the beauty of nature, and the prison as the symbol of societies need to tame nature.

    Read More

  • Characterization, Symbolism, and Irony in The Scarlet Letter

    1459 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a novel about a young woman who commits adultery and is forced to wear the letter A, which symbolizes adultery, on her chest. In this novel, Hawthorne includes many symbols to display hidden meanings, including character symbols to wake up the reader. Irony is an important element as well, used to reveal the hypocrisy of humankind. The Scarlet Letter is a unique blend of characters, irony and symbolism.

    Read More

  • Sins of Hester Prynne, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter

    2123 Words  | 5 Pages

    Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is a study of the effects of sin on the hearts and minds of the main characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Sin strengthens Hester, humanizes Dimmesdale, and turns Chillingworth into a demon.

    Read More

More about The Evil Characters in The Scarlet Letter

Open Document