In Chapter 10 of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Roger Chillingworth, one of the main characters, seeks revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale, the town's minister who commits adultery with Hester Prynne, Chillingworth's wife. Chillingworth prys into Dimmesdale's heart, feverishly trying to get deeper and deeper into his soul. His intentions are to eliminate Dimmesdale, which would be the ultimate revenge. Chillingworth's secret rancor towards Dimmesdale makes his sin all the more evil. However, adultery is seen in the Bible to be the worst sin one can commit. Hawthorne plays with the idea of sin and how each should be weighted, subtly including his opinion of whose sin is worse. In this essay, the concept of sin throughout the novel will be examined and who ultimately committed the worst sin.
In the Puritan faith and in some of today's religions, adultery is a very heavily weighted sin. It was, and still is in several religions, taken very seriously and considered to be the worst sin one can commit. As stated in the Christian Bible, "But a man who commits adultery lacks judgment; whoever does so destroys himself" (Proverbs 6:32). This directly relates to Dimmesdale, who goes through great suffering due to his guilt. He lacked judgement by committing adultery without thinking about what his role is in the community; a well-regarded member of the ministry. He destroyed himself by being overwhelmed with extreme guilt and putting himself through rigorous self-punishment which eventually is the death of him. Likewise, Hester lacked judgement and destroyed herself by not considering how this would affect her life. She ended up with an unexpected pregnancy and being ostracized from society.
There lies irony within Hester and Dim...
... middle of paper ...
...s, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord. On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.' Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:19-21).
Seeking revenge on someone is the same as taking the job of the Lord, according to this scipture. Rather than leaving the punishing to God, Chillingworth takes it upon himself to carry out the punishment.
Works Cited
1) Wiederkehr, Macrina. Seasons of Your Heart: New York: Silver Burdett Company, 1979
2) The English Standard Version Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.
3) Bloom, Harold. Bloom's Major Novelists: Nathaniel Hawthorne; Bloom's Major Novelists; 2000, p14-18, 5p
Some of the women are suggesting other punishments and the women are telling us about Hester and Dimmesdale. People say," said another, "that the Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to heart that such a scandal should have come upon his congregation. " Page 49: Reverend Dimmesdale is seen as a godly man. A man who does not commit sin and in his own mind at this point he feels fine and does not have any guilt. Dimmesdale at this point in the novel is seen as godly and throughout the novel is seen as godly even at the end after the last scaffold scene.
In The Scarlet Letter, the main characters Hester Prynne, Roger Chillingworth, and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale are tangled in a web of deceit, which is the result of a sin as deadly as the Grimm Reaper himself: adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The Scarlet Letter, describes the feeling of deceit using the main characters; for each of the cast the reaction to the deceit is different, thus the reader realizes the way a person reacts to a feeling differs between each character.
takes the form of “an eye for an eye”, meaning that the offender should be punished by an act of
Guilt and shame haunt all three of the main characters in The Scarlet Letter, but how they each handle their sin will change their lives forever. Hester Prynne’s guilt is publicly exploited. She has to live with her shame for the rest of her life by wearing a scarlet letter on the breast of her gown. Arthur Dimmesdale, on the other hand, is just as guilty of adultery as Hester, but he allows his guilt to remain a secret. Instead of telling the people of his vile sin, the Reverend allows it to eat away at his rotting soul. The shame of what he has done slowly kills him. The last sinner in this guilty trio is Rodger Chillingworth. This evil man not only hides his true identity as Hester’s husband, but also mentally torments Arthur Dimmesdale. The vile physician offers his ‘help’ to the sickly Reverend, but he gives the exact opposite. Chillingworth inflicts daily, mental tortures upon Arthur Dimmesdale for seven long years, and he enjoys it. Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth are all connected by their sins and shame, but what they do in regards to those sins is what sets them apart from each other.
does not save by sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord's and he will give
The English Standard Version Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
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
Revenge is considered part of human nature because it is a survival instinct. Humans are inclined to commit acts of savagery because people are delicate beings. The Oxford English Dictionary defines revenge as, “the action of hurting or harming someone in return for an injury or wrong suffered.” Two good examples involve Montresor from the Cask of Amontillado and the unknown narrator from the Tell- Tale Heart. Montresor murders a fellow wine connoisseur because he insulted Montresor in a manner that could not be exonerated. The narrator of the Tell-Tale Heart enacts revenge by murdering an old man for provoking the narrator’s worst fears in the form of a “ vulture eye”. In both of these works by Edgar Allen Poe, the need for revenge consumed their internal fears and insecurities to perform those cruel acts. In the end though, both of the people discussed showed signs of remorse that in a way formed the character.
Hawthorne's statement through Chillingworth offers insight into Dimmesdale and Chillingworth along with a representation of Hawthorne's disapproval of the Puritan values. This disapproval is the driving force of the novel, and it underlies the relationship between Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, and the prevailing greater justice of God. The contrast of the Puritans' justice and God's makes the message of the story greater than a love story or a story of a sin. With this theme, The Scarlet Letter becomes a comparison of the flawed justice of humans and the divine justice of God.
Scofield, C.I., ed. Scofield Reference Bible. New and Improved. New York: Oxford University Press, 1909. Print.
“I did not intend to pay, before the gods,/for breaking these laws/because of my fear of one man and his principles.”
The idiom “revenge is sweet” appears so frequently that one might think the cliché is true, yet the nature of revenge is far more complex and may leave more bitterness in its wake. The cyclical nature of revenge and man’s inhumanity to man means it has a propensity to intensify and devastate the people in its wake including the inflictor. Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold and Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits examine the theme of the nature of revenge through the presence and significance of prominent characters seeking revenge in both Latin American novels.
The Reverend Dimmesdale was another character that demonstrated the effects of sin. He committed the same offense that Hester committed, adultery. The difference between Dimmesdale and Hester was that Dimmesdale was not publicly punished for his crime while Hester was. Because of this, Dimmesdale felt extremely guilty. This feeling of guilt was so atrocious that it mentally and physically withered Dimmesdale, as he felt a very strong need to repent and cleanse his soul.
warning of the same enemy of God that will become a danger to them. Cleverly, at the