Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes

Danika McGee
16 November 2012
The dish best served cold: Analysis of Roger Chillingworth’s revenge in The Scarlet Letter
It is possible for someone to become so consumed by revenge that his health suffers. He has been wronged by someone and believe in “tit for a tat”, so they choose getting even instead of forgiveness. This may seem like the easiest and fairest way to live life, but it can completely occupy lives and cloud judgment. Roger Chillingworth chose to take revenge on Dimmesdale (for the affair the minister had with his wife) in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. His need for revenge becomes unnatural and his hatred for Dimmesdale eventually ruins him over the course of several years.
Chillingworth is ashamed of the
He will stop at nothing to know the name of the man that slept with Hester. She is afraid to tell him that it is Dimmesdale, but her not telling is not hurting Chillingworth because he believes that "[Dimmesdale] is [his]” (4.23). With this statement he is assuring Hester that no matter what is done, he will know the truth. What he originally wanted to do when he found out about Dimmesdale is not certain in the novel. It was not, however, to torture him mentally for seven plus years out of revenge. Something (more than likely a demonic force) pushed him to do something that was “not indeed precisely what he had laid out for himself to tread” (11.1). No matter what he wanted to do, it ruined his own life along with Dimmesdale’s. Chillingworth even begins to look like a demon at one point in the story. When Dimmesdale and Hester are in the forest talking they see him in the dark. It was not a normal sighting, however, “so vivid was the expression[…]that it seemed still to remain painted on the darkness” (12.34). His face could clearly be seen in the dark of the night. The expression hangs there like a bad omen, signifying that Chillingworth will be back for the two of them. Pearl even calls Chillingworth "the black man" and tries to whisk Hester away from him before he "[catches her] like he [caught] the minister" (10.22).Chillingworth knows the extent of his revenge and how inhumane it is, but does not stop it. It is even said to be “blacker than [Dimmesdale and Hester’s] sin” (17.21). He has no control over what he is doing because an inhumane entity is controlling his body and mind. He went from being a well off scholar to an evil man bent on avenging his name, after being hurt by Dimmesdale and Hester. It would be better for “[Dimmesdale] to have died at once” (4.18) rather than continue to live in a world where a possessed man is out to get him. Death is the only way for