The Death Of Hester Prynne By Roger Chillingworth

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.

In Nathaniel Hawethorne’s The Scarlet Letter, five scenes stand above the rest in the entirety of the book. Each of these scenes focusing on one of the main characters, Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, who’s real name has never been revealed. In order of occurrence, the scenes which have been deemed most important include, Hester on the scaffold holding Pearl as an infant, and Roger Chillingworth visiting Hester while she is still in the prison being two examples. Another being what many would consider the climax of story is when Dimmesdale stands on the scaffold with Hester and Pearl in the darkness. The final two being Dimmesdale and Hester’s meeting in the forest, and the day upon which Arthur confesses his sins and passes on. Though these are all strictly opinion, they are key points in the novel.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne decides to be unfaithful to her husband Roger Chillingworth with minister, Arthur Dimmesdale because she is lonely while her husband is gone and she has gotten feelings for Dimmesdale over time. Hester then gets pregnant and has to deal with the consequences for being an adulterous. In Chicago, Roxie Hart cheats on her husband, Amos Hart, with their furniture salesman, Fred Casely because Roxie has always wanted to be a star and Casely told her over and over again, “You’re a star, kid! My little shooting star!” Casely claimed that he knew a guy that would get Roxie into show business, but he lied about that just so he can sleep with her and when Roxie finds that out, she goes insane and shoots him. This contrasts to The Scarlet Letter because after Hester has an affair with Dimmesdale, she does not kill Dimmesdale, instead she keeps her head up, keeps the baby, forgives Dimmesdale, and attempts to get Chillingworth to back off. Chillingworth has made it his goal to ruin the lives of Hester and Dimmesdale because although he expected her to cheat on him, he feels betrayed and he has anger towards Dimmesdale for sleeping with his wife and impregnating her.

In the novel The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth face the burden of making paramount decisions. Each character chooses to make bold choices with substantial effects which determine how the story plays out. First, Hester chooses to not expose Pearl’s father. Second, Dimmesdale refrains from revealing himself. Lastly, Chillingworth chooses to hide his true identity as Hester’s husband. The end results of the antecedent decisions influence the shape and structure of the novel.

In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne exhibits how three very unique characters are evidently brought together by the sins that they have perpetrated and how they manage to perform acts of atonement in the puritanical Boston society. Hester Prynne sins by committing the shocking transgression of adultery. Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, who as well engages in adultery with Hester, abandons her and their daugher because of his own cowardice and hypocrisy. Roger Chillingworth grows to become a maleficent being who tries to corrupt the very soul of Reverend Dimmesdale. Although Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale do sin greatly, it is Roger Chillingworth who sins to the most ferocious degree.

Dimmesdale realizes that he must confess his sin and face whatever consequences may lie ahead of him, whether or not his confession is seven years past due. Before reaching the “well-remembered and weather-darkened scaffold,” where Hester Prynne had encountered the “world’s ignominious stare,” Arthur Dimmesdale cautiously comes to a pause (246). Only two people in the crowd, Roger Chillingworth (Hester’s husband) and Hester Prynne, understand why Dimmesdale halts before ascending up the scaffold. He will finally reveal his identity to the town and release the guilt that has built inside of him for seven years. As Hester and Pearl are about to accompany Dimmesdale up to the scaffold, Chillingworth “trusts himself through the crowd” – or, from Hawthorne’s description, “so dark, disturbed, and evil was his look,” Chillingworth “rose up out of some nether region to snatch back his victim from what he sought to do” (247). Ignoring Chillingworth’s effort to stop Dimmesdale, the three mount the scaffold and face the eager crowd. In one of Dimmesdale’s final speeches, he claims that Hester’s scarlet letter “is but the shadow of what he bears on his own breast” (250). The moment after Dimmesdale reveals his ‘scarlet letter’, he stood “with a flush of triumph in his face as one who had won a victory” (251). As Dimmesdale had wished, his remorse and internal pain is forgotten once he reveals his true identity, allowing his soul to experience its elapsed freedom.

Desire, passion, love, sex, adultery, evil, religion, law, and judgement are the primary topics that make reading The Scarlet Letter more interesting. Caught up in passion, Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale, succumb to their desire in the forest. Hester is a married woman and Arthur Dimmesdale is the Puritan community minister. Their affair is adultery and brought to light when Hester becomes pregnant. Pearl is the illegitimate daughter of Hester and Dimmesdale.

The townspeople, in shock, sympathize Hester because the unknown adulterer exposes his secret. As Dimmesdale finishes his last words to his true love, he dies in Hester’s arms. Watching Hester lose the love of her life and Pearl lose her father allows others to sympathize them because once again they are left to fend for themselves. The shared feeling between the Puritan town

Hester Prynne, the woman that has been living as one of the biggest sinners in this town. Since the time that she had to carry with such an atrocious title, Hester has been humiliated, mentally harmed, and has slowly lost her own sanity. Now even though she has gone through so much, there is two things that have not changed and that is for one, she has not once weared the scarlet letter with shame, she wears it with pride and at the same time with the responsibility of showing the sin that she will not be able to run away from. Secondly, Hester never stays away from her daughter Pearl, the girl that brings her the consolation that she needs but also that reflects on the acts of her sin. It can obviously be seen that Hester most keep her daughter Pearl, she has gone through alot and her daughter is all she has left to accompany her and bring her peace.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne analyzes Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. In the story, Hester is the main character of the story and was called Mistress Prynne (Hawthorne 70). Dimmesdale, in the story was referred to as Reverend Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 90). Chillingworth was originally named, Roger Prynne but later in the story he changed his name to Roger Chillingworth. In the story, Hester committed adultery with Dimmesdale against Chillingworth and in the beginning she got punished and sent to prison and later she got to get out of prison but with the exception of having to wear the letter A on her breast every time she went out in to town.

As Hester settled into her new home she befriended a young man, Reverend Dimmesdale. They developed a companionship over a period of two years after Hester had arrived in the new country. This union turned into an affair, which left Hester pregnant without anyone knowing the father’s identity. Hester’s husband was “lost at sea” so everyone knew that Hester’s affair was out of infidelity. The town turned against Hester and accused Hester of adultery. Hester lived in a community of Puritans who had very strick rules. Adultry was a very big sin that when committed could be resolved in death. For Hester's punishment she was lead up on the schfold in front of the whole town. It was as if she was in a trile but had nobody defending her. As she had her baby Pearl in her arms she was asked who the father was, but she would not say. Soon the reader finds out that the father is Reven Dimmesdale. During Hester's trile her was very nervous that she would tell. If she would have told he would have been sentenced to death. To the end of her trile she did not say who was the father but she could only live because of her baby and she has to wear a letter A on her cloths for now

The three main characters in the novel are Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Dimmesdale. Hester is an adulteress and has a baby named pearl and she is convicted and her punishment is to wear a scarlet letter “a” upon her chest and to wear it until her death where it will be marked upon her grave as well. Her husband who she cheated on was Roger Chillingworth, which was his alias in the new world. He discovers Hester’s ignominy and is set on finding her partner in the “crime” they committed against him. Dimmesdale is the man who Hester had an affair, although he is the minister and that is a huge scandal for the preacher who speaks against infidelity. Hawthorne makes the relationship acceptable by showing that Hester and Dimmesdale actually love each other opposed to Chillingworth and Hester’s fake love.Chillingworth convinced Hester into marrying him which she never wanted to do in the first place, he only wished to own someone not love them. Chillingworth can be associated to evil because of his wish for revenge and torture to Dimmesdale which are considered the worst kind of sins. Chillingworth is also referred to as a leech which is what

Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale are the two main characters in the novel the scarlet letter. As parents to Pearl, the daughter out of adultery, these two go through the journey of shunning and hatred, but not together. Their stories are very different, and yet, so very similar.

After being found guilty of adultery, Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her clothing as a public sign of shame. Her long lost husband, now under a new name to remain unknown, reappears after being presumed lost at sea. With revenge on his mind, a drama explodes around Hester. Over many years, her lover Dimmesdale falls ill and the new town physician Chillingsworth spends many hours by his bedside, only to start believing that Arthur is the father of Pearl, Hester’s out-of-wedlock child. When pleading with Dimmesdale, Hester begs him to leave for Europe so that they can start a new life together. This plan fails when Hester discovers that Chillingsworth is also to be a passenger. Eventually, Dimmesdale dies in Hester’s arms, and losing an opportunity at revenge, Chillingsworth dies shortly after. With a large amount of money left to her, Pearl and her mother relocate to Europe to start a new life (Hawthorne).

Arthur Dimmesdale, a minister, lives his life under the watchful yet admiring eye of the townspeople of Boston and, as a result, becomes a slave to the public opinion. His sin against Hester and Pearl is that he will