Vengeance, Truth, And Loyalty In The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Vengeance, truth, and loyalty are the base of the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. There are several scenes that are essential in the novel because they develop the plot that leads up to the climax and resolution of the narration. Starting with The Interview in Chapter Four, where the sinner Hester Prynne confirms that the stranger, Roger Chillingworth that she had seen in the crowd before was actually her former husband and that he is in Boston for a macabre reason. The next significant scene is the first real encounter between Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale in the forest in The Pastor and His Parishioner in Chapter 17, where the two characters confront each other and make a decision to escape to Europe together to start a new life and leave everything behind. Furthermore, the final and most influential scene is The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter on Chapter 23,
where Dimmesdale, the young and well respected minister reveals the truth to everyone that has been draining his brain and soul for the last seven years of his life.
In Chapter Four, Hester Prynne meets with the physician Roger Chillingworth in jail. Prynne discovers that he is her former husband and that he had returned to ask her to go back to him and that if she decides to accept his offer he will drop the charges and assume responsibility for her and the child even though he is not the father of the child. The offer that Chillingworth made for Hester is denied because Hester had fallen in love with someone else and she clearly states that when they married, she had no affection for him. “Thou knowest, thou knowest that I was frank with thee. I felt no love, nor feigned any” (Hawthorne 72). This is the pivotal moment where Chillingworth instantly decides to dedicate his life on revenge. Hester’s former husband feels remorse against the man who committed adultery with Hester and is determined to seek vengeance because he had lost Hester forever. The physician says to Hester “Yet fear not for
him! Think not that I shall interfere with Heaven’s own method of retribution, or, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law. Neither do thou imagine that I shall contrive aught against his life; no, nor against his fame, if, as I judge, he be a man of fair repute. Let him live! Let him hide himself in outward honor, if he may! Not the less he shall be mine!” (Hawthorne 73), in this quote Chillingworth says that he will not take revenge by killing anyone but that he will let the internal shame and guilt slowly kill the sinner. Roger Chillingworth is using a paradox to emphasize that he will not kill but that he will let the man slowly die from culpability. He then makes Hester swear to him that she will not tell anyone who he really is by threatening her that if she says something, he will have no mercy on the man she cheated him with. Hawthorne shows that the promise that is made in this scene leads to more complications in the novel because the fate of the characters are affected due to the many secrets kept between the characters.