Chillingworth In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'

Chillingworth is not Chilling In The Scarlet Letter Roger Chillingworth is seen as the main antagonist throughout the whole story. The town’s people think he is the black man from the forest trying to harm their beloved Reverend Dimmesdale. Even Hester, his wife, thinks she sees a change in him that has transformed him into something more wicked. But is he really a sinister doctor or does he just want the love promised to him on his wedding day? In subtle ways through the story he shows his love for his cheating wife, he gives up any chance of being known again, and even proves he cares for Pearl. Even though through most of the book Roger Chillingworth is despised and feared by this Puritan community; it was not always this way. Mr. Chillingworth’s actual name is Mr. Prynne and is married to a beautiful women named Hester Prynne. While they are separated Hester commits the act of adultery and is punished severely by the religious community. Once Roger sees the situation he talks to Hester in her prison cell and says, “I drew thee into my heart, into its innermost chamber…I betrayed thy budding youth into a false unnatural relation with my decay. Therefore,...I seek no vengeance, plot of evil against thee” (Hawthorne, ch. IV). This shows
Instead of leaving he stays in order to punish the man that will not admit his sin like brave Hester. But staying in the town comes at a fee: “There are none in this land that know me…. Let,therefore, thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and of whom no tidings shall ever come” (Hawthorn, ch IV). At this point forward that Roger Chillingworth will create himself anew in order to maintain the reputation of wicked just so he can punish the man that needs to receive his own punishment. This man is none other than Reverend