Roger Chillingworth In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a woman named Hester Prynne that had an affair with a minister named Arthur Dimmesdale and had a baby, which caused Hester’s husband, Roger Chillingworth, which was gone at the time on business, to get revenge on both Hester and Dimmesdale. Chillingworth makes their lives miserable and soon, Hester

The lack of beauty of the townswomen displayed in the beginning of the novel symbolizes strong misplaced morality and rejects Puritan ideals. The Scarlet Letter follows the story of a young woman living in Puritan society that is found guilty of adultery. She is branded with a red letter “A” as her punishment, which forces her to battle the town's opinions of her. The town’s moral compass and righteous leader, Reverend Dimmesdale is revealed to be the father of Hester’s illegitimate child. This causes moral dilemmas to arise within Hester and the

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne presents the reader with the harsh, life changing conflicts of three Puritan characters during the 17th century. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Robert Chillingworth must endure their different, yet surprisingly similar struggles as the novel progresses. Despite their similarities, Hawthorne shows these individuals deal with their conflicts differently, and in the end, only one prevails. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s intricately critical diction helps determine his didactic tone; during the course of The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne reveals that happiness can be harnessed through one’s perseverance.

Unlike Hester’s sin of adultery, which she redeemed through charitable and amicable behavior, Chillingworth’s misdeed is one of malice and remains largely unredeemed at the end of The Scarlet Letter. At the beginning of the novel, Chillingworth makes a point of befriending Dimmesdale only so that he may gradually siphon away the minister’s liveliness and vigor, a phenomenon that Hawthorne alludes to by comparing Chillingworth to a blood-sucking leech. As his hatred develops further, Chillingworth “[grows] emaciated, his voice… [becoming] a certain melancholy prophecy of decay” (9). This consequence of Chillingworth’s spite, which haunts him physically so that he becomes a gaunter, more harrowed and wretched version of himself, becomes increasingly

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, is set in Puritan times, following the lives of Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth after Hester’s crime of adultery. While Hester Prynne successfully processes her emotions and refuses to cave in on herself, the men in the novel resort to revenge. When one devotes themselves to vengeance, they become consumed by it. Reverend Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth both spend the novel taking revenge on themselves and someone else, respectively, leading to their decline of life and character.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter is about sin. Its heroine, Hester, and the town minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, both bear the weight of adultery on their backs. Hester’s sin is discovered, and she is forced to wear a scarlet A on her chest. Dimmesdale’s sin remains hidden, and it eats away at him for years. Ultimately, Hester finds comfort in the public nature of her sin.

Chillingworth is physically becoming a monster which is noticed by Hester; “Hester Prynne looked at the man of skill, and even then, with her fate hanging in the balance, was startled to perceive what change had come over his features-- how much uglier they were-- how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure more misshapen…” (Hawthorne 63). Also, as Chillingworth began to work with Dimmesdale, “At first his expression had been calm, meditative, scholar-like. Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face…” showing the commencement of his transformation (Hawthorne 78).Monomania for Dimmesdale establishes and affects his physical, physiological, and and emotional condition. During the Puritan times it was common in this type of society for a husband to punish an unfaithful wife, according to Branch; however, Chillingworth only wants to get revenge on Dimmesdale (146-147). His animosity starts to grow for Dimmesdale as he continues to work with and close to him, investigating Hester’s

            Later on during the story while Hester and Chillingworth are in the woods talking about Dimmesdale, Hester shouts at Chillingworth, "You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart! Your clutch is on his life and you cause him to die daily a living death!" (Pg. 156) Hester knows Chillingworth has more evil in his blood than ever before in his life; he feeds off the pain he causes Dimmesdale and enjoys every minute of it. Chillingworth doesn't realize in the slightest how much more evil flows through his veins now, than did before in his life. It

His heart becomes hardened and cold because no one knows; neither will Hester admit who the father is. He is jealous, angry, and frustrated that Hester has committed adultery against him. Chillingworth begins his endless torture of the minister, continuously tormenting him with comments designed to send him horror and pain. Dimmesdale does not realize Chillingworth's intensions, but

The Scarlet Letter tells the tale of a woman named Hester Prynne who has an illegitimate child, Pearl, with one of Boston’s well-known ministers, Arthur Dimmesdale. Set in Puritan New England in the 1700s, the environment encircles the Puritan beliefs as well as the Puritan government. Caught by the town when she starts to show, Hester is sentenced to prison time and public humiliation for her adultery. As she raises Pearl she encounters her eccentric behavior and wild actions in stride as she has difficulties establishing just punishments for her. Over the course of the novel, Pearl develops into a main character, daringly questions the townspeople, and leads Hester away from evil, which increases her significance in the novel.

Altered by sin in The Scarlet Letter, evil, obsessive, and manipulative are what describe Roger Chillingworth. From the beginning, Roger is an enigmatic yet intriguing character, knowledgeable in medicine from his time in captivity, as well as - unbeknownst to others except for the audience - the wife of Hester Prynne. Becoming eviler as the story goes on, Roger’s complexion is only matched by the devil himself, with his only goal being to pursue Dimmesdale for his (and Hester’s) act of sin. Roger stays for seven years, becoming obsessed about Dimmesdale’s suffering and pain, like a leech. His dependency proves to be his downfall, as when Dimmesdale accepts his sin to be a part of him, Roger’s life is now without purpose. These chain of events leads to the idea that Roger Chillingworth’s act of sin (revenge), as well as Hester and Dimmesdale’s act of sin (passion) influence his character development and outcome greatly in The Scarlet Letter, as he becomes psychologically more manipulative, evil, and obsessive, and physically more sinister looking. In Puritan society, it proves someone else’s sin can make another one twisted and evil, as

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a Romantic novel about two adulterers, Hester and Dimmesdale, who are forced to live with the repercussions of their sin. Hester Prynne is punished by wearing a scarlet ‘A’ which ostracizes her from Puritan Boston, leading to several years of solitude. During this time, Roger Chillingworth, her vengeful husband, preys on Dimmesdale, whose only source of repent is in his hypocritical preachings. When Dimmesdale finally speaks to Hester again, they plan to escape their wrongdoings by fleeing back to England, where they can live together as a loving family with their daughter Pearl. Although some may argue that Hester and Dimmesdale are in love, a closer examination of the novel shows that they are

He comes back from a long, grueling trip to find his wife suffering public shame for an adulterous act. When he arrives in the colony and learns of Hester’s situation, he leaves her alone for almost seven years. He takes this time to single-mindedly pursue Dimmesdale. Though the evil is obvious to see coming from Chillingworth he does see his role in Hester’s downfall. He had married her when she was young and beautiful and shut her out only to read his books. He was not able believe that such a beautiful young woman could marry such a man, misshapen since birth. He seemed to have this idea in his head that she would forget his deformity by all the wonderful intellectual gifts she would receive from him. Chillingworth is a “man of science,” a man of pure intellect and reason with no concern for feelings. He has got himself so wrapped up in the scientific intricacies of the human body that he has lost being able to look it through a spiritual

The Scarlet Letter follows the female protagonist Hester Prynne in her ventures as an outcast of the Massachusettes Bay area. After indulging herself in a lifestyle of sin, Hester is bestowed with a beautiful daughter whom she names Pearl, the problem, however, lies in the fact that Pearl’s concieval was a sin, and done with a man who is not Hester’s husband. The novel follows Hester and Pearl and their development across several years, with the plot analyzing the identity of Hester’s secret, and upon discovery, forbidden lover. To add to the enjoyment, Hester’s husband is thrown into the mix, opting to keep his identity a secret and determained to inflict vengence on his wife’s illicit lover. The characters then delve into a world of secrecy,

Throughout the book The Scarlet Letter, there are numerous amounts of characters introduced to the reader. All of these characters help to make the scandalous story come alive. One of the most perplexing and interesting characters in the novel is Roger Chillingworth, who is referred to as the black man or the devil, but who is he really (Hawthorne,2003)? He is the antagonist of the story it is assumed for killing his wife's lover. However, right before his death he gave his wife's illegitimate child a large amount of land, so maybe his character is not completely bad.