King Arthur's Deception In Scarlet Letter

It is in these chapters that Roger Chillingworth seeks revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale. In other words, in these chapters Roger Chillingworth acts as a leech that feeds on Arthur Dimmesdale, the leech’s patient. Roger Chillingworth utilizes his cleverness and mentality by claiming that he is living with Arthur Dimmesdale strictly under medical reasons. However, Roger Chillingworth actually lives with Arthur Dimmesdale because of his dilating surmises of who Pearl’s father might be. Roger Chillingworth is able to use his cleverness and mentality in a way that he contrives an identity that permits him to actualize whatever he may desire. With his cleverness and mentality, Roger Chillingworth effectively achieves moral ambiguity.

Initially he is a man of logic and reason. Be that as it may, he begins to let his emotions control his seek for revenge. His want for retaliation seeps into his field of medicine. As a physician he believes he is supposed to care for patients and never intentionally hurt them but, he himself deliberately shatters the belief and hurts Dimmesdale. After, he boasts the details to Hester. She then begins to question if he tortured Arthur. Chillingworth replies "No! No! He has but increased the debt!"(Hawthorne 118). The idea that he takes pride in inflicting pain upon his patient and announcing himself the optimal physician, makes him a hypocrite. He was not only a hypocrite in his medicine but, also toward Hester. Roger confesses to Hester that he is to be held accountable for their failed marriage. He leads on to state that he was seeking no vengeance nor to plot evil against her and that the scale hung fairly balanced. Later, it becomes clear his real intentions were purely our of revenge which shows his true hypocritical

Physically deformed and mysterious, Roger Chillingworth finally met his wife after being separated from her for almost two years.  He showed no great anger towards her and took upon himself some of the accountability saying it was “...my folly and thy weakness,” (Hawthorne 52) which was the cause of Hester's sin.  Chillingworth's only feeling was one of revenge towards the man who had been Hester's lover.  Chillingworth was obsessed by hate and revenge so much that when Dimmesdale died “... the life seemed to have departed...” (Hawthorne 72) from him and he died within a year of Dimmesdale's death.  Chillingworth never felt guilt or attempted repentance because he “... violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart.” (Hawthorne 133).  He sought to destroy Dimmesdale's

Secondly, Chillingworth is manipulating Hester Prynne and controlling her thoughts. Lastly, Roger Chillingworth has an overall evil personality in going throughout his life. His evil all starts with Dimmesdale and his actions towards the beloved priest. Roger Chillingworth is slowly killing Dimmesdale. This evil is evident when the townspeople start to connect two and two with Roger coming to town coinciding with Dimmesdale’s health decreasing and to

Once Roger is aware of this information he becomes close to the minister, and in all his might for revenge does whatever it takes to make Dimmesdale suffer even more: “it came to be widely believed that the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale…was haunted either by Satan himself or by Satan’s messenger in the person of old Roger Chillingworth” (Hawthorne 201). Throughout the book it refers to Dimmesdale as the devil, simply because of the harsh acts he commits are truly evil. Most often it is seen how Roger mentally tortures Dimmesdale in many different ways without Dimmesdale knowing that Roger is aware of his secret. During the progression of the story, it is most obvious to note the progression, or more appropriately the decline in Dimmesdale physical health. Often to punish himself for his sin he would inflict pain or suffering by whip himself, or even fast for much too long of a time that would lead to serious harm: “He looked thinner and more worn down with worry...Either from his failing health or for some other reason, his large dark eyes had a world of pain in their troubled and melancholy depths” (Hawthorne 177). Through the progression of the story Dimmesdale 's health, or the lack thereof, is directly shown from his physical appearance. The physical suffering of Dimmesdale is one that is most apparent as the man begins struggling to walk to collapsing in the arms of Hester right before he dies. Arthur

“Reality is easy. Deception that's the hard the hard work” -Lauryn Hill. In the novel the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses literary elements such as symbolism, irony and conflict to show deception and secrecy can lead to self-destruction. This relates to the Scarlet Letter because in the book the protagonist character commits an act of sin that was more than just frowned upon. Not only does the community gossip and turn their cheek to the sinner but a sickness comes along from keeping a secret from the community.

Roger Chillingworth’s sin, however, was not in an instant. His was calculated, drawn out, and committed with malice towards both Dimmesdale and Hester for years on end. He tormented Dimmesdale psychologically for years, and drained what little life Dimmesdale had in him out slowly and intentionally.He felt no guilt for these sins, nor was he ever punished for them in life.

Roger Chillingworth’s soul is immediately taken captive by revenge as soon as he finds out about Hester’s infedelity (I would go w infidelity). He is transformed into a devilish figure overcome by a passion to torture Hester’s partner in crime, Arthur Dimmesdale. Hawthorne shows Chillingworth’s evil intentions, “The intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it…which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy” (Hawthorne 127). In The Scarlet Letter,

He sees his former wife being shamed by the town for her sin of adultery and from that point on he is set on finding the man which whom had sinned and committed the same terrible crime as Hester Prynne. He later has a sense that it is reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. He furthers his investigation on Dimmesdale and becomes more and more evil by the day. Later on he persuades Dimmesdale to move in with him to help him as he is getting sick. At least that’s what he told him. In Roger Chillingworth’s head this is the perfect opportunity to finally find out if he is right about Dimmesdale being the father of Pearl. The shame and guilt held within Arthur Dimmesdale has made him grow very ill and he does not sleep very often because the sin of adultery keeps him awake in the late hours of the night. However, one night he slips up. He falls asleep and Roger Chillingworth takes advantage of this. He opens the shirt of sir Dimmesdale and sees what we can only assume is a scarlet letter “A” over his heart. Throughout all of Chillingworth’s mental torture and studies he does on the reverend he has been giving him medicine. Nobody knows if the medicine given to Arthur is helping him stay alive or if it’s slowly killing him inside and

He started as a neutral bystander, wanting to study medicine and science. From Hester’s act of adultery, he changed (inverted sentence). Symbolized by Chillingworth’s name change, it is apparent that there is a shift of identity in the old physician. Through a determination to inflict revenge on Dimmesdale, the father of Pearl, Chillingworth becomes consumed by an evil so intense that it is questionable whether he feels any guilt at all: “In a word, Old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office” (Hawthorne 132). When sin becomes too consuming and evil, like in the case of Chillingworth, extremely sinful actions can prevent guilt from overtaking the individual. Instead in this stage of guilt, the desire to continue to sin overcomes the person. Roger Chillingworth is transforming into a devil-like figure, choosing to immerse himself in sin, bringing him one step closer to the devil. Similar to the devil, Chillingworth is past the point of empathy, a key component when one feels guilty, showing that he lacks all

Roger Chillingworth tries to get revenge on Dimmesdale.

Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale appear very similar in how they act, how their actions influence them, and how they respond to these actions. They both untruthfully seem like honorable men to the townspeople, and act as if they truly do conduct themselves in this way. By behaving like this, they delve further into sin and suffering; however, instead of divulging who they really are, they both continue making these mistakes of dishonesty. For example, when Chillingworth comprehends that Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl, he decides to take revenge, but this choice causes “a terrible fascination, a kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity [to seize] the old man” (Hawthorne, 120). Dimmesdale, too, suffers from deteriorating health

Roger Chillingworth’s corrupt behavior is filled with revenge, cruelty and evilness. He is a fiend as he obsesses over plotting his revenge. Obsession, vengeance, and hatred consume him throughout the novel. Once Dimmesdale is dead , Chillingworth no longer has an object for his hatred or revenge. Upon his death, Chillingworth leaves his entire fortune to his daughter Pearl. This act could be seen as a redemption for his own

He instead accepts Hester and Pearl, a positive though final step. Arthur recognizes that he should have put aside his desire for public worship when he says: "‘People of New England!...ye, that have loved me!--ye, that have deemed me holy!--behold me here, the one sinner of the world! At last!--at last!--I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood; here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me, at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face!'"(220) Even his confession, however, is tainted by the fact that his death is near at hand. He cannot entirely escape his desire to have the people look well upon him because he dies a hero's death. Arthur dies in the heroine's arms, publicly and somewhat triumphantly, having gotten a certain amount of ugliness off his scarred chest. The difficult blow of his adulterous fornication is softened for onlookers because his pain and impending death are so apparent. His cathartic confession is not followed by a lifetime of public shame as that which Hester has endured but rather peace in heaven, presumably, considering his repentance. It seems that Arthur has the benefit of the confession and recognition without the painful aftermath, and because his confession comes so close to his time of death, he is remembered as the sweet man he was before his death and not as shamefully as he could

Throughout the years, Roger Chillingworth became more evil, letting his hatred consume him. He admits that he is evil by stating, “… there was a fiend at his elbow! A mortal man, wit once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!” Over the seven years, Chillingworth