In the Scarlet Letter, the role of the villain is vague and not truly defined; it seems to be left up to the reader to make their own decision. In the first three chapters we are lead to believe that the villain will be an abstract one, the prejudice of Hester Prynne’s pregnancy. This is quickly dissolved when her husband, Roger Chillingworth, arrives and discovers her condition. He then becomes obsessed, with finding out the identity of the child’s father. Hester Prynne could also be considered the villain.
Richard F 25 October 2011 Evil for All Life is the pattern of rises and falls of good and evil. A holy reverend is just as capable of committing a crime, just as a murderer might be selfless and give an innocent child a treat. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, characters ride the constant struggle between right and wrong and face the present and futuristic results of their actions. Hester Prynne, a single mother of a bastard daughter, faces this evil in form of the embroidered letter upon her chest. Chillingworth, Hester's undisclosed husband, falls under the evil spell of revenge, as well as Dimmesdale, a reverend in the Puritan society, also falls into the murky waters of lies and deceit when
He feels betrayed and his pain turns to anger as he becomes engulfed with rage and vows to destroy her partner. When he confronts Hester for the first time, she asks him ‘“Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?’ /’ ‘Not thy soul,’ he answered, with another smile. ‘No, not thine!’” (Hawthorne, 74). Hester equates him to the devil; but Chillingworth makes it clear he seeks no vengeance on her, only her partner.
Despite Dimmesdale’s physical deterioration, Hawthorne develops Dimmesdale as morally strong to assert that atonement of one’s sin leads to morality. Arthur Dimmesdale is one of the three main characters involved in the central conflict of the novel. He performed the sin of adultery while Chillingworth was away, and Pearl is his true daughter. Yet, unlike his fellow adulterer Hester, the town does not know of his crime. Watching every day as the people say things to Hester like “At the very least they should put a hot iron on Hester’s head” and “[Hester] ought to die”(88) drives Dimmesdale mad.
In “The Minister's Black Veil” Mr. Hooper, while talking to Elizabeth explains “If I hide my face for sorrow, there is cause enough...” (Hawthorne 447) In other words Mr. Hooper has no choice but to comply for his sin by wearing the veil. And in “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” Jonathan Edwards tell his congregation that hell is the place one will go if they commit a sin. Edwards describes with vivid details “ it is a great furnace of wrath a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that they are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the dammed in hell”. Saying that hell is where God will send the helpless evil
By presenting Claudius as the unfaithful serpent, it gives readers the connotation that he is evil, betraying and loathsome, correlating to the ghost’s and Hamlet’s feelings. Moreover, the serpent pattern of imagery is weaved in the ghost’s description of the poison- “swift as quicksilver it courses
It is a tale of remorse, a study of character in which the human heart is anatomized, carefully, elaborately, and with striking poetic and dramatic power” (Duyckinck 181). Revenge played a major role in The Scarlet Letter because it was due to Roger Chillingworth’s vengeance that Arthur Dimmesdale was driven to his death. Chillingworth’s character was an evil man. He was controlling, manipulative, self-absorbed, and both physically and psychologically monstrous. His need for revenge was so great that he would do and did the unthinkable; Arthur Dimmesdale was trapped inside a prison of guilt, and Roger Chillingworth mentally tortured him.
Shakespeare is a master at providing an audience with keen insight into the human psyche through the actions and words of his heroes, and even more so, his villains. Contained in Shakespearian plays are characters that are considered archetypes for much of today’s basis of judging a person malicious or malevolent. Two of the most infamous villains in all of Shakespearian literature are Iago in Othello and Claudius in Hamlet. Both Claudius and Iago are driven by immoral ambitions, such as jealousy. Unlike many of the "evil villains" in literature, Iago and Claudius are far more complex than may be seen at first.
Revenge Revenge is a harmful action against a person or a group. It is characterized as a form of justice, seeking or taking vengeance for oneself or another person by retaliating in response to a grievance. Within the short declaration "Of Revenge" by Francis Bacon he describes the self-destructive nature and the injustices that revenge brings about while detailing the benefits of forgiveness. While "He Becomes Deeply and Famously Drunk" by Brady Udall's story explores the concept of revenge as Archie contemplates killing his father's murderer until realizing the elderly man Calf red Pulsipher is not worth the effort and lets go of his anger. From the short story "Spanish Roulette" by Ed Vega the poet Sixto vows revenge against a local gang member who raped his sister and battles with himself to make the right choice.
John Webster, a well-known playwright and dramatist is especially known for his brilliant work like "The Duchess of Malfi" and "The White Devil" famous for his grotesque imagery and macabre logic of writing, he takes his audience into a gritty and grim voyage to a world littered with corpses, death and blood. There is intense realism in his writing embellished with the imaginative use of words. It can be categorized into sententious writing using motifs of tempests and darkness to glorify its very essential impulses. In ''The Duchess of Malfi'' published in 1623 he has created a world of negativity, shifting allegiances and suspicious underlying motives. Bosola, the spy villain calls this world a "sensible hell" which implies a paradoxical state of being and evil generates evil and there is no mutual reciprocity of good and evil.