Roger Chillingworth Character Analysis

Roger Chillingworth is a very interesting character in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel "The Scarlet Letter". He is the novel's antagonist, and is Hester Prynne's husband who she was unfaithful to. As the antagonist of this story, he serves a crucial role when we examine the shame and guilt experienced by Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale, because while Hester Prynne has the entire village to shame her, Dimmesdale's only judge is Chillingworth himself, though he does it in ways that are less marked and plain. When Chillingworth finds out that Dimmesdale is Pearl's father, he decides then that his revenge will not be any average reprisal. Chillingworth decides that this man's punishment will be far worse than Hester Prynne's. However, what is most interesting …show more content…
It instead comes in the following few paragraphs as a few different quotes that totally reveal the character's judgement and state of mind in regards to himself. The first comes a bit later in paragraph twenty one, when Chillingworth tries to remind Hester of what he was like before her disloyalty. "Dost thou remember me? Was I not, though you might deem me cold, nevertheless a man thoughtful for others, craving little for himself..." (par. 21) He seems, in my mind, to sound almost wistful in his reminiscence. We had seen a little of this earlier, in paragraph 19, when Roger Chillingworth gazes at himself in a mirror and is horrified of his own look, as though he hadn't been fully aware of the effects his cruelty had on his constitution. When Hester agrees that he was like this before, he asks her what changed him, and she admits it was herself who did so (par. 23-24) When Hester then says that that she must tell Dimmesdale who Chillingworth really is, Chillingworth reacts in a very interesting way. Instead of protesting, he only says that he will not try to stop her. He says that what shall happen when she does reveal the truth is up to fate, and that he cannot control it any more than she