Theme Of Secrecy In The Scarlet Letter

He pretends to know them so he can follow them to England. Hester learns of this plan in this passage: “‘Why, know you not.’ cried the shipmaster, ‘that this physician here—Chillingworth, he calls himself—is minded to try my cabin-fare with you? Ay, ay, you must have known it; for he tells me he is of your party, and a close friend to the gentleman you spoke of,—he that is in peril from these sour old Puritan rulers!’”(210). There is no reason why Chillingworth would follow Hester and her family, except so he can ruin Dimmesdale’s soul. Chillingworth is so obsessed that he doesn’t even care about his own life anymore. He is neglecting himself by changing his environment and forcing himself to watch his former wife with someone else. Chillingworth reinforces his motives by the following actions: “But, at that instant, she beheld old Roger Chillingworth himself, standing in the remotest corner of the marketplace and smiling on her; a smile which conveyed secret and fearful meaning”(210-211). His obsession is again conveyed through his smile, but this time it is also directed towards Hester instead of just Dimmesdale. His intentions are not

Context- in this excerpt from the chapter 10 Chillingworth has decided to help Dimmesdale with his “illness” which is supposedly being caused because Dimmesdale wont tell the public that he was the adulter in the case of Hester. This stress is overrunning him and making him weak. So he needed a doctor to make him better but they are no official doctors in the town since it is a new town in the new world. The closest thing to a doctor is Chillingworth, Chillingworth agree to help and the two move into together. Chillingworth Slowly finds out the the thing that is really make Dimmesdale sick is his guilt and he speculates that it has something to do with Hester. I believe that he comes to this conclusion based on his infatuation with the missing

Chillingworth mainly sinned out of revenge. He was angry about what Hester had done and wanted to get back at her and the other man. At the end of the book, Dimmesdale ends up dying, all because of what Chillingworth did. “‘Thou hast escaped me!’ Chillingworth repeated more than once.

Secrets can destroy even the most respected people. Sometimes is not the secret itself that drives people into exhaustion, but the emotional baggage that comes with it. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Reverend Dimmesdale physically deteriorates because of his guilt caused by a dishonorable sin. The Puritan society in which the story is set discourages the idea of the private self, which Hawthorne shows by creating distinctions between the characters’ private and public lives, specifically Dimmesdale’s.

The characters in the Scarlet Letter are judged greatly through how and who they are able and unable to forgive. Such as the main female lead, Hester Prynne, and her struggle for the town to forgive her, finding the will to forgive herself and having God forgive her. Although, this was hard because every day she had to live with the scarlet letter upon her chest as a reminder of her sin. Another character that had one of the roughest times in the novel was Arthur Dimmesdale. This man kept a sin hidden for most of the novel and let it eat him away. The person that Dimmesdale needed to forgivehim the most was Pearl. He spent most of the novel trying to earn her beloved trust. Pearl would ask him favors to go into town with her but it

In contrast to Dimmesdale, there was Chillingworth, the legal husband of the woman Dimmesdale sinned with. Disguised as a healer, Chillingworth waits and observes, trying to discover the identity of the father of Pearl, the child of Hester. When he discovers that Dimmesdale was the lover, he moves in with Dimmesdale to torture him. Chillingworth uses his position as a healer to do the opposite of his occupation, to hurt Dimmesdale’s mind, tormenting him psychologically, and ultimately poisoning his mind. He tortured Dimmesdale throughout the whole novel and not once showed remorse for his horrible sin. He was never confused about his sin; he never questioned if it was right or wrong. This was a result of his religious views; he wasn 't religious at all in fact, he was referenced as the Devil.

“All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.” Everyone deserves privacy and the right to control what information is subjected to the public. Since everyone is showing their true colors, whether they know it or not, the amount of information out there in the world should be enough to know the character of an individual. In today’s culture, there is a want to expose someone, and the person being exposed may have said those thoughts in confidence, thinking it was a safe environment. People of faith should not show themselves freely to the world because it takes away their right to privacy which can affect their everyday life. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester underwent serious public shame because everyone knew about her private life without her consent. Her punishment was to wear a scarlet colored “A”, for adultery, on her chest and stand on a scaffold in front of the whole community for public shame. They even tried to take her child away. In the book, it describes her punishments by saying, “Lastly, in the lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan settlement, with all the townspeople assembled and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne, - yes, at herself, - who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, an infant on her arm, and the letter A in scarlet, fantastically embroidered with gold-thread, upon her

            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

A human not facing the truth and living in shame and secrecy is not an honorable being. In the book The Scarlet Letter that theme is revealed to us. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of the book, tried to live in secrecy because of the shame he had on his family. The Scarlet Letter is one of a kind, being one of the first novels written in the 1800s. It teaches its audience that while living in secrecy, fear will become the acquaintance of living time. Just like one of the main characters in the book, Hawthorne had a desire to keep something in secret and did not want to reveal the truth.

In the fictional novel The Scarlet Letter, the contrast between public and private truth is made quite clear. The three main characters of this book make perfect examples of this overarching theme. The characters in this book are the pastor Mr. Dimmesdale, the doctor Roger Chillingworth, and the adulteress Hester Prynne. First, Mr. Dimmesdale, who seems like devout clergyman to the public, has a big secret that could get him killed if it were made known. Next, Roger Chillingworth, a harmless doctor in the eyes of the public, is actually a man on an evil and vengeful mission. Finally, Hester Prynne’s public truth is that she is unimportant outcast while in private the complete opposite is true. In conclusion, Mr. Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth, and Hester Prynne all are prime examples of the theme, public versus private truth, that Hawthorne tries to convey in The Scarlet Letter.

This gives him the chance to interact with Hester on good terms, but that is quickly neutralized when his kindness was due to luring out the truth. His rise to fame in the town assigns him to the dimming Reverend, Arthur Dimmesdale. His villainy, in this case, enhances the plot by placing Dimmesdale right in the lion's den; leaving Chillingworth to be able to poke and prod at Dimmesdale conscience, a strategy that Dimmesdale did not notice. His torment of the already weak Reverend shows his twisted mentality and lack of human remorse, which eventually is the downfall of Arthur Dimmesdale and the doctor himself. Chillingworth's actions towards the Reverend is revealed when his true colors are exposed by the light given off of the meteor.

Chillingworth decides to keep his sin hidden, and it begins to not only spiritually deform him, but also physically deform him to the point where the whole town notices. He loses all joy in his life, and on that note, any hope of redemption. Thus, Chillingworth "withered up, shriveled away, and almost vanished from mortal sight" (Hawthorne 260). Chillingworth makes destroying Dimmesdale his only purpose. So when Dimmesdale dies, Chillingworth has no purpose.

Society has unintentionally been guided by the same themes since the beginning of time. The recurring themes that are present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic The Scarlet Letter are still relevant in today’s society. When high school students and teachers claim that Hawthorne’s novel is archaic and should be removed from the curriculum, they are absolutely wrong. Hester Prynne, the main character of the novel, commits adultery and as punishment, has to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest for everyone to see. Throughout the novel, Hester is faced with obstacles such as the struggle between self and society and the burden of publicly suffering for her sins. Despite a substantial amount of time having passed since Puritan times, the themes that Hester Prynne had to experience are still pertinent. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s husband, is driven mad by his incessant need for revenge and in society today there are many occasions where people are plagued with the desire to seek vengeance. There are some instances in life where human nature takes over without people even realizing and revenge is one of them. Also, people are right when they say “history repeats itself” because some of these themes never go away. The Scarlet Letter takes place in the strict religious time of the 1600’s and although the book seems outdated and obsolete, the ideas inside are still relevant and therefore high school students should continue to read this work

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.

The theme of isolation is highly present in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” Isolation Plays a very important role in the novel. Every main character finds themselves isolated in one way or another, but while some are absolutely and thoroughly destroyed by it, others gain loads of power. Characters Hester Prynne, Chillingworth, and Arthur Dimmesdale are all victims of isolation in the Puritan town of Boston, due to a different reasons such as Adultery, upbringing, and their past.