Experiences that characters go through bring about different changes. Whether physical or mental, these changes are evident in literature. A prime example of a character in literature who changes both physically and mentally is Roger Chillingworth. In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chillingworth transitions from being a frail looking, soft spoken and reserved old man, to an evil minded, deformed old man fueled by revenge.
Mentally, Chillingworth begins the novel as a very intelligent and wise man, when with the Indians. He learns a lot from them and accepts their differences in medical practices. It is stated in the novel that “he had gained much knowledge of the properties of native herbs and roots...had quite as large
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Also, when Chillingworth changes mentally it causes his physical appearance to change.
As the novel progresses, when Chillingworth first sees his wife Hester with a baby that is not his, he begins to become evil. He tells Hester “few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery…shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must needs be mine!” expressing how he is going to set out for revenge and will not not stop until the man that Hester had a baby with suffers. He wants to commit evil when seeking for his revenge. Chillingworth changes mentally from calm and intelligent to angry and ruthless.
The revenge that Chillingworth seeks and the mental change that occurs causes
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Hawthorne writes about Chillingworth “This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture...which analysed and gloated over” which shows how Chillingworth has been torturing Dimmesdale and enjoying it (p.302). Chillingworth did the evil of slowly torturing Dimmesdale. When he becomes fully evil he also changes physically. He looks completely evil too and “But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man...had vanished, and been succeeded by an eager, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look” displaying how he went from intelligent looking man to a fierce and scary looking man
Roger Chillingworth’s main internal conflict was his personal revenge towards Arthur Dimmesdale. Roger is a dynamic character who changes from being a caring and mindful doctor to a dark creature enveloped in retaliation. His character possesses a clear example of the result when a person chooses sin by letting his vengeance get the better of him. For example, Roger constantly asks Hester to tell him who has caused her punishment. As Roger visits Hester at the prison, he is determined to find out who Hester’s lover was, “...few things hidden from the man, who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of mystery” (64).
Years ago, Hester promised Chillingworth to keep his identity a secret, thus allowing him to do evil to Dimmesdale. Chillingworth believes that it was his fate to change from a kind man to a vengeful fiend. He believes that it’s his destiny to take revenge and thus would not stop until he does so.
Chillingworth is also a sinner because he pretends to be a physician when he really isn?t and takes that role to torture Reverend Dimmesdale. Chillingworth tortures Dimmesdale slowly by hurting him both physically and mentally. During this time he pretends to take care of him in which he really isn?t. Hawthorne writes, ?Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was ? a quiet depth of malice ? but active now, in this unfortunate old man ? imagine a more intimate revenge ? upon an enemy.
One of the various ways Chillingworth serves as the devil’s advocate is by being the antithesis of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, the palpable Jesus figure of the narrative. Chillingworth keenly sets out to devastate Dimmesdale, as Hawthorne informs us when referring to Chillingworth's unearthing of Dimmesdale's secret, “All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving!” The capitalization of the words "Pitiless" and "Unforgiving" confirm that Chillingworth is Satan in human form. Symbolically, on an additional, more perceptible note, Chillingworth steals one of Dimmesdale's gloves and drops it on the scaffold in the middle of the town. The sexton returns it to Dimmesdale saying, "Satan...
Chillingworth saw Hester, after emerging from a great period of solitude, as a symbol of life. He regarded her as almost a savior. ...
...d making his condition even worse by not confessing his sin. It was his own choice to keep his sin a secret when he should have confessed it a long time ago. Also, it was his own choice to torture himself. Dimmesdale believed that he should be the one punishing himself because his sin was a secret so therefore he had to deal with it and punish his sin on his own, minus the torturing from Chillingworth. Therefore, Hawthorne describes sinning as being better if the sin is a public sin and not a private sin and he also believed that one chooses to become evil. Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are tremendous examples of Hawthorne’s definition of sin and evil.
Hester Prynne, such a lady bound to a man named Roger Chillingworth, has been left alone as if in mid day vulnerable to commit an action that she or any other person would consider a sin. The affair begins with Chillingworth being taken away by Indians and left there for a long time. Hester, not knowing what became of her husband Chillingworth, was overcome with a darkened feeling to dishonor her marriage with Chillingworth and have an affair with the striking young minister Dimmesdale. This terrible sin that Hester has committed puts innocent people, such as Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, in the position of being accused or discriminated from these actions of being involved with Hester. Hester was then seen with an infant at her arms and a
Roger Chillingworth is consistently a symbol of cold reason and intellect unencumbered by human compassion. While Reverend Dimmesdale has intellect but lacks will, Chillingworth has both. Chillingworth becomes the essence of evil in chapter 10 when he finds the scarlet letter on Dimmesdale’s chest, where there is "no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom." As time goes by Dimmesdale become more frail under the constant torture of Chillingworth. Even the town
Chillingworth hides his true identity throughout the book, equivalent to the way Dimmesdale hides his guilt from the town. Evidence is given in chapter four that suggests he is Hester's husband. “You have kept your lover’s secret. Keep mine, too! No one knows me here. Don’t tell a soul that you ever called me husband!” Chillingworth proclaims to his wife Hester. (Sparknotes). Chillingworth’s hidden identity is a symbol for Dimmesdale’s guilt because in both cases the truth is kept from everyone except Hester. Dimmesdale is full of guilt from the time Hester stands on the scaffold. His guilt is so strong it causes him to feel sick, and become weak in his body. The town recognizes Dimmesdale’s sickness, however they have no clue it is caused by his abundant amount of guilt. This is also symbolized by Chillingworth’s
Chillingworth contributes to those of guilt and alienation. For example, Chillingworth expresses his own guilt through the ironic searching of Dimmesdale’s. “He had begun an investigation… with the severe and equal integrity of a judge, desirous of truth… instead of human passions and wrongs inflicted upon himself,” (Hawthorne 121). It is conspicuous that Chillingworth, being engrossed in finding the truth of Dimmesdale and his adultery, which he observed through victimizing him, inflicted his own sin upon himself. However, Chillingworth does not only inflict guilt upon himself, but on Dimmesdale as well. The observable effects are “his inward trouble [which] drove him to practices more in accordance with the old, corrupted faith of Rome than with the better light of the church in which he had been born and bred,” (Hawthorne 136). These effects, which Dimmesdale puts blame on his inward trouble, or sin, is caused in part by the victimization of Chillingworth towards him. Hence, Chillingworth has altered Dimmesdale’s original, clergy-like practices to those that are a derivative of sin and guilt. A testament of inflicted alienation upon Dimmesdale is seen in evidence brought up prior, on page 128 of The Scarlet Letter, “… a bodily disease, which we look upon as a whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be
Dimmesdale. At first his expression had been calm, meditative, and scholar-like. "Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they [people of the town] had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight the oftener they looked upon him.'; (Chpt. 9, p. 155) While pretending to be Dimmesdale's trusted confidant and physician, Chillingworth is actually slaying him by means of medicine and mental torture.
The theme Hawthorne builds up in Chillingworth is not simply his pain and torment. It is a more important representation of the weakness in the values of the people in Puritan times, and how their perseverance for "justice" skewed their views on life and forgiveness. Because of his mindset, Chillingworth torments himself with his goal to destroy Dimmesdale just as much as Dimmesdale tortures himself for their seven years together. Chillingworth is ruining his own life and does not realize it, because he no longer sees the value in life as he tries to ruin one.
When Roger meets with Hester in the prison, he tells her, “I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee… the scale hangs fairly balanced” (Hawthorne 70). Chillingworth shows kindness towards Hester and accepts that it is partially his fault that she was not faithful. This act of forgiveness seemed to have taken all the light out of him, because from this point forward, his life was consumed with darkness. When Hawthorne describes Chillingworth, he says, “there was something ugly and evil in his face…haunted either by Satan himself, or Satan’s emissary” (117). Chillingworth was the antagonist of the story because he let the evil take over. By letting his life be consumed with seeking vengeance for Dimmesdale, he allowed the evil in him to win. Chillingworth’s vengeance shaped his appearance and even his looks displayed the darkness that was within him.
In Chapter 9, “The Leech,” Hawthorne uses many devices to reveal aspects of both Chillingworth and Dimmesdale’s character. For instance, even the title of the chapter hold significance in regards to Chillingworth’s character. Hawthorn used the old-fashioned term “leech” for “physician” because of its double meaning; while Chillingworth is acting as the minister’s doctor, he is also metaphorically sucking the life out of his as he seeks his revenge. Throughout the chapter Chillingworth’s evil nature is developed through the descriptions of his features. While before his expression had been “calm, meditative, scholar-like,” Hawthorne soon describes the change in his face to be “something ugly and evil” (Hawthorne 145). In addition, Hawthorne
As the novel progressed, Chillingworth fits the profile of ‘vengeance destroys the avenger’. When Roger Chillingworth is first introduced to the reader, we see a kind old man, who just has planted the seeds for revenge. Although he did speak of getting his revenge, when Hester first met her husband in her jail cell, she did not see any evil in him. Because Hester would not tell him who she had slept with, Chillingworth vowed that he would spend the rest of his life having his revenge and that he would eventually suck the soul out of the man, whom she had the affair with. “There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, suddenly and unawares” (Hawthorne, 101) As the novel develops, Roger Chillingworth has centered himself on Arthur Dimmesdale, but he cannot prove that he is the “one.” Chillingworth has become friends with Dimmesdale, because he has a “strange disease,” that needed to be cured; Chillingworth suspects something and begins to drill Dimmesdale. “… The disorder is a strange one…hath all the operation of this disorder been fairly laid open to me and recounted to me” (Hawthorne, 156).