Sin in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter

Who is the greatest sinner?

In this writer’s opinion, the greatest sinner in The Scarlet Letter is Roger Chillingworth. There are other characters in the book of who the reader knows has sinned. The only thing that the reader knows of Chillingworth initially is that he wants it to be kept a secret that he is Hester’s husband. The reasons that he can be called the greatest sinner is because he makes a conscious choice to keep certain secrets, he wants to exact his revenge on the man who got Hester pregnant and he is intent on hurting people around him, specifically Hester and Dimmesdale.

The first reason that Chillingworth can be called the greatest sinner is that he likes to have secrets and he threatens Hester into keeping his identity secret. Hawthorne writes, “Thou has kept the secret of thy paramour. Keep, likewise, mine! There are none in this land that know me. Breathe not, to any human soul, that thou didst ever call me husband! Here, on this wild outskirt of the earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments. No matter of whether of love or hate; no matter whether of right or wrong! Thou and thine, Hester Prynne, belong to me. My home is where thou art, and where he is. But betray me not!” Further in the book he determines that Reverend Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl. And he confronts Hester about it. Again, he tells her that she needs to keep this secret as well. At this point no one else knows who the father of Pearl is other than the Reverend, Hester and Chillingworth.

The second reason why Chillingworth is the greatest sinner is that he wants to exact ...

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...seemed at once to desert him; in somuch that he positively withered up, shriveled away, and almost vanished from mortal sight, like an uprooted weed that lies wilting in the sun. This unhappy man had made the very principle of his life to consist in the pursuit and systemic exercise of revenge; and when by its completest triumph and consummation, that evil principle was left with no further material to support it, when in short, there was no more Devil’s work on earth for him to do, it only remained for the unhumanized mortal to betake himself wither his Master would find him tasks enough, and pay him his wages duly”. It is almost as if Hawthorne and wrote him to be a picture of the devil so that there would be some kind of antagonist in the story that knew the whole story between Hester and Dimmesdale. This is why Chillingworth is the greatest sinner in the story.