Evil In Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Roger Chillingworth, who is a former physician, is the evil figure throughout the classic novel. In Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, Captain Ahab, who is an experienced captain, portrays as the evil character also. Both figures from the novels represent an excellent example of evil-natured men who are out to get vengeance on someone or something for the wrongdoing to them. First, Chillingworth and Ahab are both trying to seek revenge on someone or something that had previously wronged them. Chillingworth’s wife, Hester Prynne, commits adultery with a man named Arthur Dimmesdale, who impregnates her. Although Chillingworth does no physical harm to Dimmesdale, he just makes his life miserable and unbearable. He tries to make Dimmesdale realize his unforgivable sin. Ahab is similar to this because he is trying to pursue revenge on a whale named, Moby Dick. The great white whale causes Ahab to lose his leg, causing him to have a peg for a limb. Because of
these actions, Ahab wants to slaughter Moby Dick to make him pay for what he did. Secondly, Chillingworth and Ahab put others in danger for their overall goal of revenge. Chillingworth is allegedly supposed to be Dimmesdale’s physician and help cure him, while he is actually slowly killing him into an unexpected death. Chillingworth enjoys watching Dimmesdale suffer, thinking that he deserves the pain, for the heartache that he has caused him. Ahab repetitively put his crew through harsh weather conditions to find the white whale. He leads them through Antarctica, where the sea had almost frozen over, and had huge icebergs all throughout. The ship then runs into one of the icebergs, yet he still refuses to turn around. The crew starts burning all of their whale oil they harvested, which was all of their profit, in order stay warm. Captain Ahab does not care about money, or any other whale except Moby Dick. The crew also sees another ship, which was the first one they had encountered since their journey. Ahab is being the psychotic man he is did not stop, and makes the men keep going in search of the one whale. The men eventually resent Ahab, and start to lose their state of mind. Finally, Chillingworth and Ahab are willing to risk anything, including their own health and lives, to again, gain revenge.
Chillingworth goes into an emotional condition, and poor health as a result of his terrible choices and priorities. When Dimmesdale passes, Chillingworth then realizes that he has no further reason to live and then dies. After Chillingworth’s one mission, which was to make Dimmesdale miserable, is taken from him, he had no desire to live anymore. Captain Ahab has a little success rate of killing Moby Dick, and he dies trying to do it. Ahab puts not only himself, but also his crew through this emotional trip, and he kills his crew and himself in the process. Moby Dick lived through it all. Overall, the actions of Chillingworth and Ahab prove that they are evil-natured driven men. Both men put others into extreme distress while in the process. They are involved in different situations, but have similar
outcomes.