Evil Manifests In The Scarlet Letter

In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, evil manifests in Roger Chillingworth when his wife, Hester Prynne, commits adultery with the town priest, Arthur Dimmesdale. This sin creates Pearl, Hester’s daughter. Another American gothic novel, Moby Dick, by Herman Melville, is a story of a man, Ishmael, who wants to find adventure. He does so by joining a whaling ship with Queequeg, his best friend. Tension arises between the ship captain, Ahab, and the crew due to Ahab’s obsession with the great white sperm whale, Moby Dick. Roger Chillingworth and Captain Ahab are both evil characters with many comparisons on how evil manifests inside them such as obsession, loss of humanity, and revenge. Evil manifests in Roger Chillingworth …show more content…
He is so obsessed with finding Moby Dick that he risks the lives of his crew along with his own. When the ship enters unsafe weather and conditions Ahab does not logically think about what action should be taken. Rather, he only considers where Moby Dick could possibly be located; therefore, he searches for the whale at whatever cost. Captain Ahab loses his humanity because he devotes his life to killing the sperm whale. This is evident when he claims that he cares more about Moby Dick than his own wife and son. He feels that it is his duty to find Moby Dick and kill him or die trying. When the ship finally finds the whale and spears it, Captain Ahab voluntarily jumps onto the whale to try to kill it. He ends up dying as a result of his heroic trial. He values the death of Moby Dick instead of his own life. Ahab feels the need to seek revenge on Moby Dick because the whale has taken his leg from him. He thinks that he is less of a man since he has no leg. If he kills the whale, he believes he will earn his manhood back. This is proven when he is having a conversation with Starbuck and he admits that he feels like less of a man. Ahab is portrayed as a heroic captain to the crew; however, his true colors are shown to the