Scientific advances have always either benefitted or harmed us. Case in point, medicine saves human lives. In contrast, chemical warfare harms human lives. In the “Scarlett Letter”, Roger Chillingworth, a world renowned scholar, chooses the path of evil. Chillingworth ends up turning into a “fiend” because of his desire to extract revenge on Dimmesdale for having an affair with his wife. The Scarlett Letter and society today correlates to one another by intellectual arrogance and technological advances endowing the human race to do evil. In the beginning of the novel, Roger Chillingworth arrives in Boston from being captured by Indians for two years. Hester notices him and he “slowly and calmly raised his finger, and laid [his finger] on his lips” he made the gesture to Hester so that she will not tell anyone who he is (pg. 57). Chillingworth asks a few questions as to what is going on and who the father to Hester’s daughter, Pearl. When the townsman replied, “Madam Hester [refuse] to speak”, Chillingworth exclaimed, “He will be known” (pg. 59). Later, at the prison, Chillingworth disguises himself as a doctor to try to talk with Hester. Chillingworth offers Hester and her daughter medicine, but Hester simply denies the medicine; she believes he wants to get his revenge on her. Chillingworth denies trying to harm her and he said, “foolish woman, the medicine is potent for good, and were [the drug] for my child, I could not do better for [the child]” (Pg. 67). After Hester accepts the medicine, she and Roger had a very detail emotional conversation as to what went wrong with their marriage. Roger blames himself and said, “How could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl... ... middle of paper ... ...community. He suggests, “Increasing crop yields for the starving populous by applying agricultural methods that ignored scientific principles.” Despite the illogical nature of his ideas, Lysenko found favor with the communist government and rose to power. In thirty years, under Lysenko influence he declared genetics a “bourgeois pseudoscience.” Many researchers had to conform to Lysenko views, if not they would be faced with the execution and arrest. The real lesson from the story that Luyo points out is that “scientific discovery cannot flourish without an open exchange of ideas, and freedom to disagree, political favoritism will not alter the laws of science and nature, and truth can never be politicized.” In conclusion, Hawthorne literary work in “The Scarlett Letter” exemplifies the real evil in some intellectual scholars today, and how the evilness can kill.
Roger Chillingworth’s suffering arose from a domino effect that he had no control of. Roger was merely a casualty of a sin that he had no partake in, but it turned his life upside down for the worse. The big punch that started Roger’s suffering was the affair between Hester and Dimmesdale. His suffering from this event was unlike the suffering it caused Hester and Dimmesdale as they suffered for their own sin, but Roger Chillingworth did not suffer from his own sin. Roger’s suffering comes directly from his own wife having a child with another man, an event he had no say or action in: “his young wife, you see, was left to mislead herself” (Hawthorne 97). Left all by herself Roger’s wife, Hester, mislead herself as no one was there to watch
Pearl is an example of the innocent result of sin. All the kids make fun of Pearl and they disclude her from everything. She never did anything wrong, but everyone treats her like she committed the sin also. Pearl acts out against the children that make fun of her and acts like a crazy child. She cannot control the sins that her parents committed.
This strategy exemplifies Hawthorne’s theme that sin must be taken responsibility for because being dishonest will only lead to more temptation. Chillingworth does admit to one of his blames of leaving Hester behind, but choosing his temptation over redemption has formed his obsession to making Hester lover’s suffer miserably with guilt, which fuels Roger’s vengeance. Secondly, Chillingworth’s internal conflict was illustrated through the changing of his appearance. Roger was once a kind, well respected, man of science; However, his vengeance has transformed his physical character into a devilish creature. When Hester and Pearl were visiting Governor’s Bellingham’s house, Hester notices the change over Roger’s features, “how much uglier they were, how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and his figure misshapen” (93).
Roger Chillingworth's features begin to display his inward deformities externally as the novel progresses due to his attempts at finding the man who violated his marriage. When he is first seen in the novel, "there was a remarkable intelligence in his features, as of a person who had so cultivated his mental part that it could not fail to mould the physical to itself and become manifest by unmistakable tokens." He also has a left shoulder which is slightly higher than the right originally, which only gets more ugly and misshapen with the rest of his body. Chillingworth then takes up residence with Dimmesdale and begins his quest to punish the minister and find out the true identity of this man. After he begins his quest the townspeople observe "something ugly and evil in his face which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him.” Soon his wife, Hester, finds "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."
From the intellectual noble man, Roger Chillingworth became the worst sinner and a pawn of the devil when he let obsession, vengeance, jealousy and hatred overpower his morals and intelligence. Chillingworth’s symbolism of evil and sin was strong, powerful and successful as he represented the self-destructive power of vengeance that people let in their lives, as well as the innate evil that results from jealousy and hatred, which can turn the purest man into the worst of sinners.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne has introduced a character that has been judged harshly. Because, she has been misinformed of her husband’s death; therefore, she was greave and had sought comfort resulting in a baby from the lover whom gave her comfort. When her secret had been discovered she was isolated for committing a treacherous crime of adultery, as one of her punishments she was forced to wear an A on her chest. The novel presents a structure of a society, using symbolism and diction to give underline meaning to the themes, portraying religious tendencies ruled by the philosophy of good and evil.
The audience experiences Roger Chillingworth in a dramatic yet critical way to justify change and retribution in one character as the consequence of cloaking deep sin and secrets. When first introduced in the story, the narrator refers to Chillingworth as “known as a man of skill” (97) through the point of view of the people in the Puritan town of Salem. He is brought into the story when the town was in a time of need of a physician to help the sickly Reverend Dimmesdale; his arrival is described as an “opportune arrival” because God sent a “providential hand” to save the Reverend. Society views Chillingworth as though as “heaven had wrought an absolute miracle” (97). The narrator feels when Chillingworth arrives in Salem he is good and has no intention of harm of others. Perhaps if the crime of the story had not been committed he would have less sin and fewer devils like features. Although this view of Chillingworth changes quickly, it presents the thought of how Chillingworth is before sin destroys him. Quickly after Chillingworth discovers Dimmesdale’s secret, his features and his character begin to change. The narrator’s attitude changes drastically towards the character from altering his ideas of the kind and intelligent persona to an evil being by using phrases such as “haunted by Satan himself” (101). The narrator portrays the people of the town believing Chillingworth is taking over the ministers soul in the statement “the gloom and terror in the depths of the poor minister’s eyes” (102). Throughout the book, Chillingworth ages exceedingly and rapidly. At the very end of the story, the narrator reveals another change in Chillingworth’s character; he searches for redemption by leaving Pearl a fortune a “very considerable amount of property” (203). By doing this, it shows
In every generation there are certain rules and etiquette that play a large role in dictating the appropriate behavior for the time. An individual may choose to live his or her life according to this code of conduct and do fairly well, or in contrast live a life full of trials and hardship as a result of their transgression. This is especially true for the early inhabitants of 17th century colonial America, a period rife with the religious zeal and harsh castigation carried out on behalf of the Puritans who settled the area. During this time, as is still the case today, offenders of this societal moral code were made examples of and forced to suffer so that they may serve as a warning to the rest of the population. This is the case in The Scarlet Letter where the protagonist Hester Prynne is ostracized from her conservative community after committing the then unforgivable sin of adultery. In his novel, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses both themes of guilt and redemption to create trials that test his character Hester Prynne and in the process transforms her from a pitiable sinner, to a symbol of strength.
The quote in Chapter 20 of The Scarlet Letter applies to Roger Chillingworth for numerous reasons. Roger Chillingworth is first introduced as an strange man with a humped back and deformed shoulders, who is a kind of creepy looking individual who recently arrived to the town. Once he arrives he makes eye contact with Hester and she knew it was her husband, the man who sent her to America alone. He tells people “I am a stranger,and have been a wanderer,sorely against my will.I have met with grievous mishaps by sea and land, and have been long held in bonds among the heathen-folk to the southward…”(69-70) The fact that Chillingworth does not reveal his true identity illustrates that maybe he is going to to revoke revenge upon Hester and whoever she committed adultery with. When Roger Chillingworth came to the jail cell to help baby Pearl and Hester, he offered her and Pearl medicine, she was hesitant to drink it. But when he sees her hesitation he responds with “Even if I imagine a scheme of vengeance,what could I do better for my object than to let thee live”(82) Even though Chillingworth didn’t directly say he's planning his
Obsession and hatred are such corrupt concepts that if one lets it consume them, it can make them inhuman. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character Roger Chillingworth is a walking symbol for how allowing revenge to become an obsession can change you into something horrible. As the story progresses, Chillingworth changes into a monster as his need for revenge and hatred grows stronger, causing him to sin by endlessly torturing Dimmesdale. Chillingworth grows into a more menacing person as he becomes a puppet to his own hatred, sin, and obsession.
When the reader first meets Roger Chillingworth standing watching Hester on the scaffold, he says that he wishes the father could be on the scaffold with her. “‘It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side” (46). At this point, Chillingworth wishes that Mr. Dimmesdale was also receiving the sort of shame Hester is being put through. Throughout the first few chapters of the novel, however, Chillingworth’s motives become more and more malicious. By the time Chillingworth meets Hester in her prison cell, he has decided to go after Mr. Dimmesdale’s soul. Chillingworth turns to this goal because Mr. Dimmesdale did not endure Hester’s shame on the scaffold. Had Mr. Dimmesdale chosen to reveal himself at the time of Hester’s shame, he would not have had to endure the pain of Roger Chillingworth’s tortures of his soul.
Roger Chillingworth utilizes his deceptiveness in a number of occasions throughout the novel. For example, in chapter three, Roger Chillingworth innocently approaches Hester Prynne, acting as if he has never once seen her. Roger Chillingworth even interrogates a local townsman about Hester Prynne and her committed sins. This shows that Roger Chillingworth purposely intends to concept a deceptive knowledge of his character in order to disconcert one who may read The Scarlet Letter. Although Roger Chllingworth is the foremost antagonist of the novel, his deceptiveness empowers him to withhold an excessive amount of moral ambiguity. With this moral ambiguity, Roger Chillingworth is able to surreptitiously accomplish a various amount of things, including the death of Arthur Dimmesdale himself.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Scarlet Letter”. American Literature: Volume One. Ed. William E. Cain. New York: Pearson, 2004. 809-813. Print
In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne analyzes Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. In the story, Hester is the main character of the story and was called Mistress Prynne (Hawthorne 70). Dimmesdale, in the story was referred to as Reverend Dimmesdale (Hawthorne 90). Chillingworth was originally named, Roger Prynne but later in the story he changed his name to Roger Chillingworth. In the story, Hester committed adultery with Dimmesdale against Chillingworth and in the beginning she got punished and sent to prison and later she got to get out of prison but with the exception of having to wear the letter A on her breast every time she went out in to town.
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).