Scarlet Letter Essay: Chillingworth's Character

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Scarlet Letter Essay: Chillingworth is the most corrupt and corrupting character in the novel Robert Chillingworth gathers all of the information he needs to find out who the lover of Hester was by observation, asking Dimmesdale and Hester certain questions to either confirm or deny what he gathered, guiding Dimmesdale into insanity until he breaks and Chillingworth watches as Dimmesdale finally confesses what Chillingworth believed to be true the entire time. Chillingworth truly corrupted Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s lives until Chillingworth got what he desired. Robert Chillingworth observes the lives of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale to calm his suspicious mind. Chillingworth was this “Stranger [that] entered the room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging”(Hawthorne 76). He was a random person that no one really…show more content…
He immediately begins attacking Hester, pestering her with questions and statements such as, "Thou wilt not reveal his name? Not the less he is mine," resumed he, with a look of confidence, as if destiny were at one with him. "He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, as thou dost, but I shall read it on his heart”(83). Chillingworth tries to shame Hester into telling him the truth. He does not know her lover is Dimmesdale at this point so he can only go to Hester and hold the letter above her head, taunting her in a sense, in the hope that she will give in and say the name. When Hester perseveres and does not say the name he threatens her lover by saying, "My finger, pointed at this man, would have hurled him from his pulpit into a dungeon, —thence, peradventure, to the gallows!"(208). Chillingworth swears that if he finds out who Hester’s lover is he will surely throw her lover into a dungeon to

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