Daisy And Chillingworth In Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter

Daisy, my dog, and I found ourselves at a family Christmas party surrounded by other canines. Every dog hungered for my attention. While the other dogs were overwhelming me with laudatory jumping, licking, and barking for my recognition of their existence, Daisy was getting jealous. Daisy thought she was special and deserved all the admiration because in her mind she was paramount. Similarly, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter the physician, Roger Chillingworth, of a small, Puritan town in 17th century Boston believed he was paramount. Roger Chillingworth ambitiously put his own aspirations above everyone else’s in order to establish preeminence over Hester Prynne’s, his wife’s, lover and attempt to secure Hester’s heart forever. Chillingworth …show more content…
Even though Dimmesdale was already suffering from guilt, Chillingworth manifested the idea to torture him because Roger was envious of Hester’s love for the priest and Roger yearned to quench his thirst for revenge. Chillingworth’s torture of Dimmesdale illustrated his narcissistic tendencies as a person. In the physician’s torture of Dimmesdale, Chillingworth punished the minister where it hurt most with his “black devices” in order to control and ruin Dimmesdale’s soul for revenge for both Hester and Chillingworth (Hawthorne 96). Although Chillingworth stated he was torturing the ordinate for Hester and himself, in reality, Chillingworth was doing it only for himself. Roger, being a narcissist, was pretentious and had a fantasy of ideal love with Hester, but he was never able to achieve it. However, Dimmesdale was able to have Hester love him, and the physician envied him. As a result, Chillingworth tried to eradicate the minister through physiological and physical anguish. In addition, Chillingworth furthered his knowledge of medicine as a physician by testing black devices on the minister, further illustrating Chillingworth’s narcissism as he considered his own pursuit of knowledge more important than a man’s life. Despite obtaining everything he wanted to get out of the minister, the physician continued to torture Dimmesdale. Chillingworth continued his torture of Dimmesdale because he became addicted to ruining the minister’s life, and eventually, he had no other purpose on Earth other than to continue torturing Dimmesdale. After the ordinate’s death, all of Chillingworth’s strength, vigor, and intelligence left him and then he shriveled up and died (Hawthorne 177). Similar to a leech, surviving off of sucking the life out of a host, Roger was unable to survive without his host, Dimmesdale. Chillingworth was addicted to