The Transformation of Roger Chillingworth essays

The Transformation of Roger Chillingworth essays In the Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a young woman is caught up in sin between two men and bound to wear a letter "A" on her chest. All three of the main characters are sinners. Hester Prynne commits adultry on her husband, Roger Chillingworth, with a minister of the name Arthur Dimmsdale. Roger Chillingworth undergoes a change that transforms him from a respectable gentleman, to a suspicious, determined man, and finally to a man compared to the devil. In the beginning of the novel, Chillingworth is seen as a highly respectable medicine man. At first, the reader almost wants to sympathize with the old man because of his physical appearance and because of the fact that his wife has a baby with another man. But then, one realizes that Chillingworths first sin was marrying Hester because he knew she never really loved him. He admits this to her while they aer speaking in the jail cell. "Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed they budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay." Chillingworth wants to know who the father of Hesters baby, Pearl, is, but she will not tell. Jealousy and anger begin to eat away at Chillingworth. He is no longer the scholar he used to be, who dedicate his best years "to feed the hungry dream of knowledge." Slowly, Roger Chillingworths character begins to undergo a change. In the middle of the novel, Chillingworth morphs from respectable to a suspicious and vengful man. At first, the Puritans receive Chillingworth well, thinking that he will help Dimmsdale. "...that Heaven had wrought an absolute miracle, by transporting an eminent Doctor of Physic, from a German university, bodily through the air, and setting him down at the door of Mr. Dimmesdale's study!" So, Chillingwoth begins practicing medicine on Dimmsdale and slowly suspects his as Pearls father. Chillingworth repeatedly tries to unravel Dimmesdales secret and get him t...