The Scarlet Letter as a Love Story

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The Scarlet Letter as a Love Story The Scarlet Letter is a story that can be perceived in many ways; it is a story of revenge, a story of sin, but most important it is a story of love. Chillingworth’s characters whole body and mind is consumed by revenge and his pure and sheer hatred towards Reverend Dimmesdale. In the novel there is sin all around the story’s main plot was sin, but that’s not the only sin that is committed. Evert Duyckinck wrote that “The Scarlet Letter is a psychological romance. 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. Chillingworth was not interested in justice because he sought the deliberate destruction of others rather than addressing the wrong doings of their actions. His desire to hurt others stands in contrast to Hester and Dimmesdale's sin, which had love, not hate, as its intent. Another way and the most common way that The Scarlet Letter is interpreted can be through sin, because sin plays one of the biggest roles in the novel. It was due to the sin of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale that Pearl was consummated, but it was a sin that came out of love for each other. Ernest Sandeen wrote that “Hester Prynne can never honestly bring herself to regard her relations with Arthur Dimmesdale as ‘sinful’ ” (Sandeen 350).
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