Consequences Of Sin In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthrone
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthrone demonstrates the consequences of sin and the effect it brings upon the individual and in the community in Boston 1840s. Throughout the Scarlet Letter, readers are constantly reminded of hypocrisy through characters such as Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth.
Hester Prynne, the main character, was a strong, independent woman who dealt with her sin of adultery very well. Instead of running away from it, she lives with it and accepts her punishment to be publicly shamed in the town. However, while struggling to accept the will of the court, she did not believe that she truly committed a sin. Hester believed that she did not commit adultery because in her mind she wasn’t truly married to Chillingworth. Hester believed that marriage was only valid when there is love, and there was no love between Hester and Chillingworth after they got married.
Arthur Dimmesdale, Hester’s partner in adultery, was another character who went through self suffering for his hypocrisy. Dimmesdale was a minister, one whom the people looked up to for direction and guidance. The people considered him a godly man, the perfect role model to follow. The townspeople thought of him as “a true
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He is punished by Hawthorne for his hypocrisy. Hawthorne makes Chillingworth deformed, both physically and mentally. Chillingworth has been gnarled with age, but his mental condition is worse. He has turned into a man bent on revenge, with no regard for anything except sating his thirst for revenge. Chillingworth proceeds to lay blame of his own present deformities on Dimmesdale. According to Chillingworth, it is Dimmesdale’s fault that he, Chillingworth, was a “fiend.” Aside from being hypocritical towards his medicine, Chillingworth is hypocritical regarding Hester as
Blindness In The Scarlet Letter
1270 Words | 6 PagesHe moves in with Dimmesdale, and claims he will care for him, but the public cannot see that his intention is to torture Dimmesdale. Hawthorne explains, “The intellect of Roger Chillingworth had now a sufficiently plain path before it. It was not, indeed, precisely that which he had laid out for himself to tread. 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” (126). He deliberately chooses to drive Chillingworth into insanity.
Rhetorical Devices Used In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
1091 Words | 5 PagesChillingworth is described as having been “calm in temperament, kindly... a pure and upright man” (88), throughout his life. However, while living in the Puritan town, he allows his quest for vengeance to consume him, and “he now [digs] into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a miner searching for gold; or rather, like a sexton [gravedigger] delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man’s bosom” (88). Chillingworth is determined in his search for retribution, so much in fact
The Devil And Tom Walker, The Man In The Black Suit,
833 Words | 4 PagesChillingsworth works day in and day out making Dimmesdale sick with work that people will find out what he had done. It's so bad that Dimmesdale starts to do self harm. Chillingworth even goes about so that hester knows what she had done was wrong too and he makes her life like she is walking on
Compare And Contrast Dimmesdale And Chillingworth
1021 Words | 5 PagesChillingworth throughout the novel commits himself to a life of revenge and willingly commits acts of evil; nevertheless, Chillingworth blames Hester and Dimmesdale for making him into a villain (Hawthorne 132; ch.14). Dimmesdale believes that Hester is lucky because she wears “the scarlet letter openly upon [her] bosom,” and he suffers because he hides his guilt (Hawthorne 148; ch.17); although, any time Dimmesdale wished, he could reveal himself as Hester’s fellow adulterer. Both Chillingworth and Dimmesdale believe that they are exempt from responsibility which leads the two towards their
Chillingworth's Identity Quotes
505 Words | 3 PagesWhen Chillingworth first arrives into town he claims to be a doctor, by saying this he has to take room with Dimmesdale, to nurse him back to health. Chillingworth's living arrangement leads to the revelation of Dimmesdale's secret. When the truth is revealed the start of Chillingworth's torturous act upon Dimmesdale begins.
Chillingworth's Guilt Quotes
1003 Words | 5 PagesFurthermore, in the story of The Scarlet Letter, Hester, has a child with the town’s minister Arthur Dimmesdale, however, Chillingworth, the actual husband of Hester gets wind of this news and immediately sets out to find out who committed
Consequences Of Sin In The Scarlet Letter
796 Words | 4 PagesThe Consequences of Sin Sin is defined as “an offense against religious or moral law”. The idea of sin and being ostracized for your sins was extremely relevant during the Puritan period when religion was the greatest component of daily life. The Puritans believed that they had entered a covenant with God and therefore any sin, such as crime and adultery were considered a breach of their covenant with God. This view led to the church punishing people who committed sin in order for God not to punish the church as a whole. The consequences and effects of sin is shown through the character development in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter.
The Leech Quotes
465 Words | 2 PagesThe way Chillingworth “scrutinized his patient carefully, both as he saw him in his ordinary life….. and as he appeared when thrown amidst other moral scenery...might call out something new to the surface of his character. While “it was a physician that he presented himself, and such was cordially received”, many people still have their doubts about him. Since Chillingworth is curious about Dimmesdale’s problems, he made “an arrangement by which the two were lodged in the same house; so that every eeb and flow of the minister’s life-tide might pass under the eye of his anxious and attached physician.” He wants so deeply to know what Dimmesdale is hiding, that he convinces Dimmesdale’s friends to let them live together, even though Dimmesdale is not truly sick; maybe sick of himself, but
Obsessive Nature In The Scarlet Letter
865 Words | 4 PagesEven before their marriage he surely knew she didn’t love him but he held on to a glimmer of hope to carry on that one day she might love him. But Hester’s affair with Dimmesdale concludes his delusion that she will ever fall in love with him. During Chillingworth’s lifetime, he has depended on obsessing over an achievable entity to survive. Since Hester’s love is no longer a plausible achievement he can only blame the man who created this issue, her new lover, Dimmesdale. He states, “I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books; as I have sought gold in alchemy.
Chillingworth The Black Man Quotes
670 Words | 3 PagesChillingworth is the embodiment of everything wicked. Hawthorne uses anything possible to show him in that light. For example, his chosen name, Chillingworth, paints him from the beginning as an unlovable character. The first time he appears in the book we learn that “one of this man’s shoulders rose higher than the other,” giving him a “slight deformity” (42). With his malicious nature and devilish appearance, Chillingworth very clearly represents the Black Man.
Dimmesdale's Responsibility For Sin In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
878 Words | 4 PagesHester and Dimmesdale each are equivalent in the sin that they commit, but their lives and fates are different because Hester had to repent for her crimes while Dimmesdale bottled up his guilt inside. The indirect result of Dimmesdale’s concealment of the truth was Chillingworth’s torture, which played a large role in Dimmesdale’s untimely death. Chillingworth snapped when Hester did not reveal Dimmesdale’s crimes. Hester, in part, helped Dimmesdale in
Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes
1390 Words | 6 PagesIn this section of the novel, a day in Chillingworth’s life can be read by the readers, in which they discover his horrid treatment towards Dimmesdale, such as prescribing unreliable medicine. The final evidence of Chillingworth’s rotten treatment took place when he started playing with Dimmesdale’s mentality, causing his wife’s lover to become fully ill. Just like the title of the chapter and his given title, Chillingworth can be compared to a leech―leeches are bloodsucking creatures that causes ultimate blood loss and possibly death, and with Chillingworth, he is trying to suck the life out of Dimmesdale to the point of unfair treatment as a pursuit of an unforgetable revenge. Since the start of his revenge, the novel has also taken notice on Chillingworth’s deteriorating appearance, further describing him as, “the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what [Hester] best remembered in him, had altogether vanished, and been succeeded by a eager, searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look” (253). This image of his face is a result of his desire for revenge.
Compare And Contrast Dimmesdale And Chillingworth A Sinner
480 Words | 2 PagesThe Scarlet Letter Essay Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale were two of the main sinners in The Scarlet Letter. Both characters kept their sins secrete throughout the story. These sins included adultery, revenge, and even murder. Out of the two sinners, Chillingworth was the worst, because he never felt guilt for the terrible things he was doing. Dimmesdale spent his entire life in guilt and remorse for the sins he had committed (“Who”).
Hypocrisy Of The Puritan Society In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne
936 Words | 4 PagesIn the “Scarlet Letter,” Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays hypocrisy of the Puritan society, where the protagonist Hester Prynne face many consequences of her actions and the how she tries to redeem herself to the society. During the seventeenth puritans believe that it is their mission to punish the ones who do not follow God’s word and it is their job to stop those from sinning. Therefore, the hypercritical puritan society punishes Hester harshly for committing adultery, but in Hester’s mind, she believes that what she did was not a sin but acts of love for her man. Eventually, she redeems herself by turning her crime into an advantage to help those in need, yet the Puritan society still view her as a “naughty bagger.” (Hawthorne 78)
The Hidden Sin In The Scarlet Letter
686 Words | 3 PagesHe was the last person that people would think as a sinner. Dimmesdale was sin when he was committed adultery with Hester. He broke the law of church, but he was afraid to face the punishment and indifferent attitude from he masses. As a faithful follower, Dimmesdale also afraid the punishment of God, so he flog himself with a whip. The physical and spiral torture and the control of Chillingworth stranded him in a world that he cannot contact with others.
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