What Are The Wrongdoings In The Scarlet Letter

All wrongdoings comes with consequences no matter the size. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a book based in the Puritan Era. The Puritan’s are known for their strict moral code, and monotheistic beliefs. The wrongdoings of this time are known as sin. So, when Hester Prynne, the main character, is convicted of committing adultery the entire town turns against her. Roger Chillingworth, Hester’s long lost husband, also gets directly affected by Hester’s crime. Hester’s Lover, Arthur Dimmesdale, also suffers from this sin, but in an entirely different way. The main characters from The Scarlet Letter experience some repercussions first hand, but some are harder to handle than others. Because Dimmesdale must live alone with the guilt from his sin, he does not suffer as much as Hester or Chillingworth.
Hester Prynne was forced to live with her sin on her chest every day. Unlike Dimmesdale, anyone who …show more content…
One of the many things the Puritans are against is revenge, and even though they did not know of Chillingworth's sin, it paid a toll on him. As Hester observes Chillingworth the narrator notes, "This unhappy person had effected such a transformation by devoting himself, for seven years, to the constant analysis of a heart full of torture, and deriving his enjoyment thence, and adding fuel to those fiery tortures which he analyzed and gloated" (Hawthorne 140). Chillingworth suffered so much from his sin, he was no longer the same person. He had aged and lost all signs of happiness on his face. His wrongdoing had consumed his life to where that was all he could focus on. For seven years, Chillingworth had wasted his life seeking revenge, and never succeeded. None of the townspeople knew of his "sin" yet it was still able to consume his life without any judgement besides his own. Chillingworth's true identity was stolen by his sin, and would never be able to be