Chillingworth's Identity Quotes

Even though Hester’s sin is the one the book is titled after and centered around, it is not nearly the worst sin committed. Hester learns from her sin, and grows strong, a direct result of her punishment. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. “ Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers--stern and wild ones--and they had made her strong... “ Hester also deceived Dimmesdale, also committing the sin of deception. She swore to Chillingworth that she would keep their marriage a secret. She even withheld this from Dimmesdale, whom she truly loved. Hester finally insisted on telling Dimmesdale and clearing her conscience. In this passage, you can see how he grows angry at Hester: “O Hester Prynne, thou little, little knowest all the horror of this thing! And the shame!--the indelicacy!--the horrible ugliness of this exposure of a sick and guilty heart to the very eye that would gloat over it! Woman, woman, thou art accountable for this! I cannot forgive thee!”  Dimmesdale does forgive Hester. She has done

Hawthorne thinks that Hester should have revealed who the father was from the beginning of the story. Meanwhile she is still trying to adjust to the punishments she's been given. In order for Hester to be let off of the cruel punishment, they relied on her. By being able to share the punishment equally instead of just one individual. If she had revealed the father, Dimmesdale would have had to share the blame, or the community might have even understood since he is a person in power and the voice of the community. Instead, she was sentenced to an unfair punishment and had to give up her privileges as someone in the community. We are able to notice that throughout the story she is very loyal to those around her who she cares about. She puts those she is interested in first because it's a sign of respect. In all this, she never once put the blame on him or tried to force him to speak up. Hester wanted it to come out of his kind heart and the love he had for her. Although she was the only one to be there with Pearl and to be judged by many people she was still able to feel the love towards her child without question “In a moment, however, wisely judging that one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another, she took the baby on her arm, and with a burning blush and yet haughty smile, and a glance that would not be abashed, looked around at

He finds out it was Dimmesdale and then set out to torture him. “[Chillingworth] never set him free again until he has done all it’s bidding. He now dug into the poor clergyman’s heart” (Hawthorne 117). Hester tells Chillingworth to stop, but Chillingworth does not. He wants to get revenge on Dimmesdale. Because of this revenge, he loses Hester forever. Chillingworth tortures him in his own best interest. He is selfish. He wants Hester, even though Hester no longer loves him. Even after he has the chance to learn his lesson, Chillingworth still acts in his own interest. He learns that Dimmesdale and Hester are going to leave on a boat, and he books a ticket on the same boat, causing more problems for Hester and Dimmesdale. Chillingworth wants only what was in his own best interest, not what is better for others.

To begin with, Hester’s sin drove the story, but after the community established her as a sinner, she overcame her sins but she still struggled through other characters. Instead of depicting Hester’s inner turmoil directly to Hester, Hawthorne portrays her tumult through other characters in her life such as Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the community. Dimmesdale proclaimed to Hester, “If thou feelest it to be for thy soul’s peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and

At first Hester, agrees to Chillingworth’s terms to keep his real identity a secret. This in return hurt Dimmesdale, her secret lover. She does not stand up to Chillingworth out of fear of the chain effect of damage it would cause. Hester says, “I will keep thy secret, as I have his”, which in essence shows her weakness towards a male. Yet, at the end of the book, she recognizes that she must “do what might be in her power for the rescue of the victim on whom [Chillingworth] had so evidently set his gripe”. She comes to the conclusion that hiding Chillingworth’s secret does not help Dimmesdale like she hopes, but in fact, hurts him further. The fact that she realizes this, though, displays her to be an devoted and loyal person. These qualities display many things a female, main character, in those times, did not have much opportunity to play, especially in the role of which Hester plays it.

Dimmesdale believes that Hester has declared her sins through the scarlet A on her chest and it relieves her burden. Dimmesdales hidden thoughts, however, seem to be the source of his illness. Despite this, he doesn’t tell anyone and doesn’t believe in confessing to an “earthly physician” and believes he should only confess to Christ. Chillingworth gets impatient but after they fight, the two men make up. Later, Dimmesdale falls asleep and Chillingworth goes to his room and lifts his shirt to reveal something that excites him. To me, his secretive nature reveals his not-so-positive intentions and the townspeople rightly suspect him of acting darkly towards the

Another effect on Dimmesdale, seen as his guilt slowly wears him down, is how he compares his actions to those of Roger Chillingworth. This is clearly seen when Dimmesdale claims to Hester, "We are not, Hester, the worst sinners in the world. There is one worse than even the polluted priest! That old man 's revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart. Thou and I, Hester, never did so!” (Hawthorne 185). Even in the privacy of the forest, he did not want to accept the full reality of his actions. This is a step forward for him, however, because he chooses to actually say aloud that what he did was wrong, just not as wrong as Chillingworth’s terrorizing of him. Eventually, Dimmesdale is able to confess to the public his sin, and this is due to his longing to escape the torture Chillingworth has been putting him through. Dimmesdale is no longer affected by the guilt that his actions brought about, so Chillingworth has no reason to aggravate him anymore. Sadly for the reverend, the shame

From the start, Dimmesdale did not want to live with the consequence of his sin. To begin with, he must of told Hester not to tell anyone about his sin, because on the scaffold, she will not tell anyone (pg. 64). Clearly, Dimmesdale was afraid of the justice and the shame that would follow. He thought that if no one knew, he could

Dimmesdale doesn’t tell anyone that he’s Hester’s lover and when given the chance to admit his sin, he let it go so many times . There is a time Hester asks him for help when the old minister tries to take Pearl away from her, she says “Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knows me better than these men can. I will not lose my child! Speak for me! Thou knows,—for thou hast sympathies which these men lack!—thou knows what is in my heart, and what are a mother’s rights, and how much the stronger there are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! Look thou to it! I will not lose the child! Look to it!” (105). At that time there’s an opportunity that he could tell everyone the truth and stand up for them, but he chooses to hide it instead to admit what he has done and allow everyone to learn from his imperfection. He is the worst sinner because he is a coward that he decides not to confess to everyone even though he has so many opportunities.

Dimmesdale will not even be seen in public with Hester and Pearl. He wants to be able to be with his daughter and the love of his life but then people would know that he committed adultery with Hester. Pearl asks, “Wilt thou stand here with Mother and me, tomorrow noontide?” to only hear, “Not so, my child.” from Dimmesdale in return (Hawthorne page 144). Dimmesdale not being able to be with whom he loves is is a struggle.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter provides a window into the puritanical mind through his character Reverend Dimmesdale. Reverend Dimmesdale comes to understand that one's relationship with God supersedes any other relationship one has, whether it's with one's beloved, one's children, or one's social circle. He expresses it publicly on the scaffold in a dramatic sequence in a passage in chapter 23. Throughout the story Dimmesdale is supposed to be an example of upright godly behavior but he's lying everyday, all the time, in every relationship because he had an affair with Hester. While adultery was illegal, it was also against one of God's Ten Commandments.

Hester Prynne’s ability to sustain her stability and strength of spirit is the express result of her public guilt and penance. She was Arthur Dimmesdale’s partner in adultery, but she is used by Hawthorne as a complete foil to his situation. Unlike Dimmesdale, Hester is both strong and honest. Walking out of prison at the beginning of the novel, she decides that she must “sustain and carry” her burden forward “by the ordinary resources of her nature, or sink with it. She could no longer borrow from the future to help her through the present grief” (54). Hester openly acknowledges her sin to the public, and always wears her scarlet letter A. In the forest scene, she explains to Dimmesdale that she has been truthful in all things except in revealing his part in her pregnancy. “A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side” (133). Even Dimmesdale himself realizes that Hester’s situation is much healthier than his own when he states, “It must needs be better for the sufferer to be free to show his pain, as this poor woman Hester is, than to cover it all up in his heart” (92-93). This life of public shame and repentance, although bitter, lonely, and difficult, helps Hester retain her true identity while Dimmesdale seems to be losing his.

Hester was forced to marry Roger Chillingworth, but she did not love him. She fell in love with Arthur Dimmesdale and slept with him behind Chillingworth’s back (Hawthorne 69). Hester Prynne was felt as if she was not loved by Chillingworth, so she decided to start seeing the priest Arthur Dimmesdale. Hester and Dimmesdale are not the types of shame and secrets (Howells). In Hester’s endurance of punishment there is publicity but not confession (Howells). The tragedy of the story is Hester Prynne’s personality (Howells). She dominates by virtue and is womanly and typical her (Howells). The A keeps Hester away but hardly equips her with

For several years, Hester is prohibited from seeing her love in public. She can only meet with him privately. Even wanting to still see him represents true loyalty—after everything Hester has been through to protect Dimmsdale's secret is reason enough to be fed up with him (Swisher 53). Hester's loyalty to Dimmsdale continues until the end; she cradles him in his last dying moments on Earth. (Swisher 53) Hester keeps her loyalty to her husband, Roger Chillingworth, as well. He asks her not to reveal his identity in their first discussion of the novel, and she obliges. For many years, she keeps the secret while Chillingworth does dreadful things to Dimmsdale. Dimmsdale's deteriorating health is part due to the awful arts Chillingworth performs on his so-called “patient.” (Swisher 53) In chapter fifteen, Hester goes to confront Chillingworth about the situation. Hester argues and argues but Chillingworth

Hawthorne had introduced Chillingworth as the victim, not the villain. After all, Hester and Dimmesdale both violated him by engaging in the act of adultery. This causes many readers to sympathize for Chillingworth until he plainly confesses that it was originally himself that sinned: "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay."(66) Chillingworth knew that Hester didn't love him before they were married, but he was looking for what he