The Leech Quotes

What are Chillingworth’s intentions? Why is he determined to “nurse” Arthur Dimmesdale back to health? These are just a couple of questions the reader may have about Roger Chillingworth when they read chapter nine, “The Leech”, of The Scarlet Letter. To help reveal Roger Chillingworth’s mysterious character to the reader, Hawthorne uses literary devices such as, metaphor, irony, and similes. Hawthorne uses metaphor to emphasize the length of curiosity Chillingworth has with Dimmesdale’s inner troubles. The title of the chapter is a metaphor itself, “The Leech”, because people in the town compare Chillingworth to a leech, because they think he is a mysterious man. As Chillingworth begins “to spend much time” with Dimmesdale, the townspeople begin to question and wonder what his true intentions are. While spending time together the two go for a long walk to “enable the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them.” Hawthorne continues to use the word leech because as the chapter goes on, it begins to reveal Chillingworth’s character.

The 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