Roger Chillingworth The Greatest Sinner

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is seen as an outcast in the Puritan dominated society. She is punished for her sin of adultery, however, she is not the greatest sinner. Roger Chillingworth is a manipulative man who commits even more atrocious crimes. He forces Hester to marry him and does not treat her very well. He is later consumed by revenge and hides his identity in order to punish Dimmesdale. Roger Chillingworth is the greatest sinner.

One of Roger Chillingworth 's misdeeds is his marriage to Hester. He is selfish in his marriage to his wife. When Chillingworth and Hester first meet in Boston, he admits to her, “It was my folly, and thy weakness. I, a man of thought, the book-worm of great libraries, a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge, what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own!” (Hawthorne 63). Hester still has a long life ahead of her, while Chillingworth is already reaching old age. This marriage is essentially chaining her down. Hester must spend the rest of her life with this old man. Once he does die, Hester will remain as a

Hawthorne narrates Chillingworth’s actions as “He now dug into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man’s bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption” (Hawthorne 107). The physician is intentionally harming a man, which is considered immoral. Furthermore, Chillingworth’s actions are depicted again through the author’s narration on Dimmesdale, “While thus suffering under bodily disease, and gnawed and tortured by some black trouble of the soul, and given over to the machinations of his deadliest enemy” (Hawthorne 117). Chillingworth has a black soul, meaning that he lacks compassion, sympathy, and