Scarlet letter info

             characterization of the townspeople as unforgiving and bloodthirsty individuals serves to heighten the guilt felt by the novel's sinners.
             Roger Chillingworth is an erudite, scholarly physician, and Hester's husband. His and Hester's marriage was arranged by Hester's parents, despite the large difference in age of the two. Chillingworth is much older than Hester. The couple did not love each other, but decided to marry anyway. For this, Chillingworth feels guilty. Chillingworth's major sin, the worst sin committed by anyone throughout the novel, was deciding to seek revenge on Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale accuses Chillingworth of the worst sin by saying: "He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart" (Hawthorne 185). When Chillingworth enters Salem, he sees his wife on the scaffold holding a baby and wearing an adornment of shame on her bosom. He bids her to not reveal his identity and he forgives her for her sin. However, he tells her, he will seek out her fellow sinner. Chillingworth says to Hester: "I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy. There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine!" (Hawthorne 69). Chillingworth's character undergoes dramatic changes both inside and outside. The evil that he has become on the inside shines through to the outside. Lewis Leary says of Roger Chillingworth: "He has been transformed from an earnest, studious, thoughtful man to a fiend whom Hester Prynne observes with a feeling of shock and wonder" (Leary 125). Roger Chillingworth never has the chance to exact his revenge on Dimmesdale because the Reverend decides to confess his transgression at the Election Day ceremonies. The leech, because he has devoted his entire life to wreaking fear into the heart of the minister, dies shortly aft...

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Scarlet letter info. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 08:19, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/23347.html