Allegory In The Scarlet Letter

An allegory is a story in which people, things, and happenings have a hidden or symbolic meaning. They are used for teaching or explaining ideas, moral principles, and more. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes the literary device of allegory in The Scarlet Letter through many different characters, including Roger Chillingworth. Chillingworth’s name is symbolic of his cold heart that has a passionate core that is enveloped in layers of cold. Throughout the story, Chillingworth plans insensitive revenge toward Dimmesdale for committing adultery with Hester. He grows colder throughout the years, and his only reason for living is to get revenge. Roger Chillingworth lives up to his name and his heart grows colder as time continues.
Chillingworth’s

He is the only doctor in the town, which causes the townspeople to trust him as a physician. Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale in order to get close to him, but uses the fact that Dimmesdale is ill to make his intentions seem pure and helpful since Chillingworth can administer him the correct medicine. “Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. To make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelled in vain,” (pg. 136). With Dimmesdale’s trust, Chillingworth can easily hurt him because Dimmesdale thinks that Chillingworth has good intentions. Roger appears trustworthy and harmless, and uses this fact in his favor in order to gain trust. Instead of immediately getting revenge on Dimmesdale, Chillingworth wants to make the revenge even worse by getting close to Dimmesdale and betraying his loyalty and trust. His heart begins to grow a layer of ice around it as his plan of revenge begins to