Rodger Chillingworth In The Scarlet Letter
Rodger Chillingworth is one of the most chilling, and at first glance, sympathetic characters in The Scarlet Letter. Chillingworth is a man disgraced by his wife’s actions. Throughout the book, he chooses to remain in the shadows of the pages to torture Dimmesdale, his wife’s lover, with his guilt. However, before the events of the novel, Chillingworth is described as a kind, intelligent man. Nathaniel Hawthorne characterizes Rodger Chillingworth as a Lucifer type figure, using fierce diction and a good and malevolent binary. Rodger Chillingworth is not a weak man, in The Scarlet Letter. The reader would assume that he would be embarrassed and humbled by his wife’s actions. While he may be ashamed of them, they do not inhibit his strong
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His generosity and lack of greed made him a model of Puritan ideals. He was, in a word, pure. However, like Lucifer, he falls from the light into the deep bowels of sin. This is emphasized by how after learning of Hester’s betrayal and starting down the endless path to revenge, Chillingworth is characterized using dark, demonic imagery. His accompaniment to Dimmesdale is described as a “constant shadow” and “a fiend at his elbow”. An old wives’ tale is that the Devil sits on a person’s left shoulder, eerily similar to Chillingworth’s omnipresence at Dimmesdale’s elbow. Hawthorne’s word choice also shows how a once good and kind man morphed into a creature of sin. After his fall from the light, Chillingworth is described as appearing monstrous in his mind’s eye. “As if he had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not recognize, usurping the place of his own image in a glass”. This image which appears in his head represents the sin overtaking his mind after revenge causes him to turn away from being kind and just. Rodger Chillingworth is characterized in The Scarlet Letter as a Devil, using fierce diction and a good and evil binary. Hawthorne uses Chillingworth’s past purity to emphasize his sins after seeking revenge upon Arthur Dimmesdale. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Chillingworth to show how revenge can turn even the best person into a sinful, demonic
His generosity and lack of greed made him a model of Puritan ideals. He was, in a word, pure. However, like Lucifer, he falls from the light into the deep bowels of sin. This is emphasized by how after learning of Hester’s betrayal and starting down the endless path to revenge, Chillingworth is characterized using dark, demonic imagery. His accompaniment to Dimmesdale is described as a “constant shadow” and “a fiend at his elbow”. An old wives’ tale is that the Devil sits on a person’s left shoulder, eerily similar to Chillingworth’s omnipresence at Dimmesdale’s elbow. Hawthorne’s word choice also shows how a once good and kind man morphed into a creature of sin. After his fall from the light, Chillingworth is described as appearing monstrous in his mind’s eye. “As if he had beheld some frightful shape, which he could not recognize, usurping the place of his own image in a glass”. This image which appears in his head represents the sin overtaking his mind after revenge causes him to turn away from being kind and just. Rodger Chillingworth is characterized in The Scarlet Letter as a Devil, using fierce diction and a good and evil binary. Hawthorne uses Chillingworth’s past purity to emphasize his sins after seeking revenge upon Arthur Dimmesdale. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Chillingworth to show how revenge can turn even the best person into a sinful, demonic