Chillingworth's Revenge In The Scarlet Letter Quotes

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The Scarlet Letter takes place in the mid 17th century, in a puritan community of present day Boston, but back then known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The story is centered around protagonist, Hester Prynne, and her ventures through her penance for committing adultery and the revenge that her husband Roger Chillingworth takes against the other member of Hester’s affair: Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale, for committing such a sin he feels an overwhelming amount of guilt. He deals with his guilt by tormenting himself physically and psychologically, developing a heart condition as a result. Roger Chillingworth, once discovering that Dimmesdale is the father of Hester’s illegitimate child, adds to the poor man's suffering by psychologically tormenting the reverend for many years, until Dimmesdale dies as a result of the crushing guilt. Roger Chillingworth, on his deathbed, leaves his large fortune to Pearl, Hester and Arthur's daughter. This action may …show more content…

And he really was a terrible guy, once Chillingworth decides to pursue Hester's lover and enact revenge, he pursues this purpose the techniques of the intellectual man he is. Moving in with Dimmesdale he pokes and prods. His theory is that corruption of the body leads to corruption of the soul. "Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these"(Hawthorne 86). Chillingworth makes it his life goal to torment Dimmesdale to death. As a representation of The Devil, Chillingworth is in no way a good person that is simply misunderstood. The fact that he is a man of science, and practices the healing ways that the Indians taught him, mad him, in Puritan society, a pawn of the devil and an nonconformist to society, linking him even further with satan

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