Scarlet Letter-Chillingworth
In The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne uses several dynamic characters to develop the plot of the novel. A dynamic character is a character that changes or evolves through the course of a story. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth were all dynamic characters. The character that changed the most through the course of the story, though, was Roger Chillingworth. In chapter three we learned that Hester's husband was "a learned man of English birth". He was "calm in temperament, kindly,... and in all his relations wi
Throughout the course of the story, Chillingworth went from a respected scholar to a devilish man, obsessed with torture. His leech-like dependency on evil and torture is illustrated by the fact that he died shortly after Dimmesdale's death. " Chillingworth realized that he was "a mortal man with once a human heart, (that had) become a fiend for his especial torture"; he had become so evil that he knew he could not turn back. " He "dug into the poor minister's heart, like a miner searching for gold", yet all the while he deceived Dimmesdale, posing as a "kind, watchful, sympathizing, but never intrusive friend. th the world, a pure and upright man. instead of human passions and wrongs inflicted upon himself. By chapter 14, Chillingworth had "transform(ed) himself into a devil" by "devoting himself to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture and deriving his enjoyment thence. He began to torture the minister, "playing upon" his conscience and worsening his guilt. He could not be blamed for his interest in his wife's affairs, and began his search for knowledge "with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth. Although there were several other characters that changed drastically through the course of the novel, no character went from one pole to the other as Chillingworth did. " When Chillingworth discovered that Dimmesdale was his wife's "partner" in her offense, his desire "of truth" was noticeably warped. " In the town he posed as Roger Chillingworth, a physician learned in both the "Christian medicines" and the medicines from "herbs and roots" used by the Native Americans of that region. By the end of the story, Chillingworth was the embodiment of evil itself.
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