Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes

Revenge is a complex word seen throughout The Scarlet Letter. Having a different meaning in the real life than in the novel. Revenge is to exact punishment or expiation for a wrong on behalf of something , especially in a resentful or vindictive spirit. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, interprets revenge as something Chillingworth seeks against Dimmesdale which lead him to learn that revenge is an otherworldly, spiritual concern, and better left to God. Once pursuing his own revenge only led him to find his own punishment for his presumption. Even though Chillingworth seems absolutely evil, while seeking his revenge. There is still something about his character that illustrates goodness still reside within him. When

She describes him showing a part of his personality that we had not seen yet. “It was not so much that he had grown older[...] But the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm, and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished and been succeeded by an eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look [...] In a word, old Roger Chillingworth was a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office”(Hawthorne 160).Giving a perspective that once before Hester becoming an adulterer and being with him, he was a totally different person. Which she further on illustrates that she is shocked to see him this way. Having no idea that a loving, kind, sweet person could transform to what she refers as to the “Devil” himself. Giving the insinuation or feeling that such an event as Hester committing adultery can transform someone dramatically. Which give that inference that he could not totally changed.

“At old Roger Chillingworth’s decease (which took place within the year), and by his last will and testament, of which Governor Bellingham and the Reverend Mr.Wilson were executors, he bequeathed a very considerable amount of property, both here [Boston] and in England, to little Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne”(Hawthorne 247). As a fairy tale with the heroes purpose to complete his goal and finish the story. Once dead, he leaves a good amount of money and land to little Pearl. Assuring a good future to her. By doing so he redeems himself in a sort of way with his final act. Expressing that he might act as the “devil” himself but still has some goodness within him. If he was not, he would not have done what he did before dying. He could have died and not given it to anyone, but instead he did not. As he had discovered punishment for his presumption when he decided to pursue his own revenge against Dimmesdale. When Dimmesdale escapes his grasps going to the scaffold to confess his sin. Chillingworth is inflicted as this happens. He already knows that evil has consumed him, and torturing Dimmesdale is his only reason for living. “At this instant, old Roger Chillingworth thrust himself through the crowd-or,perhaps so dark, disturbed and evil, was his look, he rose up out of some nether region-to snatch back his victim from what he sought to