The Biggest Sinner In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter’s Biggest Sinner
According to the Bible, the Devil sought more power than he already had. He wanted the power that God has. When he wages war and loses, he is thrown to hell, but his hunger for power never ceases. He punishes people for their sin to gain more power and pleasure. The Devil is, nevertheless, the worst sinner, and a parallel is drawn to Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. In his novel, Hawthorne presents the reader with three sinners: Hester, Dimmesdale, and Chillingsworth. It is clear in the novel that all of them are wrongdoers. Dimmesdale’s and Hester’s adultery causes them to be spiritual transgressors, but Hester’s sin is revealed to the village while Dimmesdale’s is a secret. Chillingsworth’s intentional
fiendish behavior is what makes him an evildoer. Even though all of these people are sinners, Chillingsworth’s maliciousness and similarities with the devil makes him the biggest sinner.
Because the devil intends to harm and torture others, Hawthorne’s portrayal of Chillingsworth as a devil also shows his maliciousness.
A man who could see Roger Chillingworth, at the moment he realizes that Hester committed adultery, “would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself, when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom. But what distinguished the physician’s ecstasy from Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it!” (Hawthorne 115). Here, the author shows parallelism between Chillingsworth and Satan: The two gain the same amount of pleasure in inflicting pain on another person. Chillingsworth is fully aware that he is about to torture someone. Also, Chillingsworth is preparing to punish another person for that person’s sin. Dimmesdale did commit adultery, which is a sin, but the devil is the one who punishes someone for his sin. The Devil’s intent is to gain power for himself through torturing and bounding sinners to his kingdom. Similarly, Chillingsworth is torturing Dimmesdale and playing the Devil’s role. The word “wonder,” which has an excited, happy connotation, implies that he is not only aware and will feel pleasure, but he will be excited and happy while he commits the sin of taking the devil’s role upon himself. Similar to the previous situation, Chillingsworth’s maliciousness is shown when Dimmesdale points out to Hester that, “[t]hat old man’s revenge has been blacker than my sin. He has violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of
a human heart. [We] never did so” (161). This further develops Chillingsworth’s role as the devil. He is shown punishing another person for a sin in “cold blood,” mercilessly, like the devil would. Only something truly unholy can change the “sanctity,” the natural sacredness, of something. Also, when Dimmesdale talks about “a human heart,” he means his own heart, but the statement applies to Chillingsworth’s heart too. In the previous situation, he is described as a fiend: He gave up his own sacredness in order to become such a devilish figure.
Chillingsworth attempts to justify his actions by claiming that since Dimmesdale hurts him, he must balance this wrongdoing by putting Dimmesdale in pain.
However, by putting Dimmesdale in pain, he is also putting Hester in pain. During Dimmesdale’s, who has been tormented by Chillingsworth, and Hester’s conversation, she realizes that she cannot bear to see “[t]he frown of [the] pale, weak, sinful, and sorrow-stricken man … and live!” (161). Chillingsworth’s justification is not valid because he knows that Hester is not happy with him poisoning Dimmesdale, but he purposely ignores the pain that he inflicts on Hester, and continues to poison Dimmesdale to his death. This punishment does not fit his victim’s crime. Months of pain, torture, and death is not a proper balance to adultery. Similarly, the Devil does not care how wrong the sin is: the pain and torture is all the same. The only difference is in how the sinner is tortured. Chillingsworth is further shown as the devil and because of that, a malicious person. He truly becomes a fiend as a result of his own revenge, and as such, his sin is the
darkest.
Many argue that Dimmesdale is the biggest sinner because he keeps his sin to himself, does not share Hester’s public punishment, and he lies. However, there are faults in the arguments that these are “sins.” Lying is not the same thing as not telling the truth. While he never tells anyone that he did have an affair with Hester, Dimmesdale never tells anyone that he did not. Also, Dimmesdale does share Hester’s troubles publicly, but he does it internally. The narrator explains that if Dimmesdale is caught on the scaffold, “[he would be] half frozen to death, overwhelmed with shame, and standing where Hester Prynne has stood!” (126). He admits to the town that he committed a sin. He just does not say it loudly enough for the entire town to hear. By standing upon the scaffold, he is opening his guilt to himself. In some scenes involving the scaffold, he even whips himself as a form of punishment in order to share Hester’s pain. Accordingly, Dimmesdale cannot be a bigger sinner than Chillingsworth.
Few argue that Hester is the most profound sinner, and those who do falsely argue that Hester feels no remorse and so, she does not think that it is a sin. However, this is false because Hester recognizes the sin: she is not ashamed because she is still in love with Dimmesdale, and at the time she commits the sin, she is unaware that Chillingsworth is still alive. Hester tell Dimmesdale, “You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past” (159). She is consoling Dimmesdale, but she also means this statement for herself. She does repent because when she committed this sin, she is unaware that her husband is still alive. Now, she repents it, and her sin is also left behind her. By the end of the novel, the “A” is removed from her chest, and she is recognized as an angel. She leaves her sin behind too. Similar to Dimmesdale, she also cannot be a bigger sinner than Chillingsworth.
Chillingsworth, the perfect parallel to Satan, is the biggest sinner because he intends to hurt another for revenge and for pleasure. Throughout his life, even by the time he dies, he remains a fiend. He never redeems himself, like Hester and Dimmesdale do. Hester receives the reputation of an angel, and Dimmesdale receives that of a saint. They never took part in the devil’s work. A sin cannot be worse than the sin of the devil.