Thesis: Chillingworth becomes so cruel because of the pain he felt when he accepted that Hester would never love him.
Paragraph One: Chillingworth has always been unloved. His own wife never really had feelings for him. In chapter four, The Interview, Chillingworth and Hester talk for the first time since he has returned. It is very obvious that Hester does not trust Chillingworth at all, and that their relationship wasn’t very loving. Chillingworth says, “‘I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit. [..]The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I—a man of thought—the book-worm of great libraries—a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge—what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine …show more content…
As Dimmesdale gets sicker, and Chillingworth realizes that Dimmesdale's sickness is from guilt due to his affair with Hester. He uses this knowledge as an excuse to make Dimmesdale sicker. But this is not all out of hatred, the narrator says, “But what distinguished the physician’s ecstasy from Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it!”(121) Chillingworth was fascinated by how much Dimmesdale's guilt is affecting him. Chillingworth is enjoying the amount of pain that Dimmesdale is going through. This is terrible, but there is a difference between being harmful for the sake of it, and the revenge that Chillingworth is seeking. Satan is mentioned in this quote, and it compared to Chillingworth throughout the book. But Chillingworth is not blindly evil, he does not so bad things for the sake of being bad. It might not even be revenge that is fueling his sins. It is just the pain that he feels whenever he sees Dimmesdale and Hester. But Chillingworth can’t really do anything violent towards Hester because he still loves
Paragraph One: Chillingworth has always been unloved. His own wife never really had feelings for him. In chapter four, The Interview, Chillingworth and Hester talk for the first time since he has returned. It is very obvious that Hester does not trust Chillingworth at all, and that their relationship wasn’t very loving. Chillingworth says, “‘I ask not wherefore, nor how thou hast fallen into the pit. [..]The reason is not far to seek. It was my folly, and thy weakness. I—a man of thought—the book-worm of great libraries—a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge—what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine …show more content…
As Dimmesdale gets sicker, and Chillingworth realizes that Dimmesdale's sickness is from guilt due to his affair with Hester. He uses this knowledge as an excuse to make Dimmesdale sicker. But this is not all out of hatred, the narrator says, “But what distinguished the physician’s ecstasy from Satan’s was the trait of wonder in it!”(121) Chillingworth was fascinated by how much Dimmesdale's guilt is affecting him. Chillingworth is enjoying the amount of pain that Dimmesdale is going through. This is terrible, but there is a difference between being harmful for the sake of it, and the revenge that Chillingworth is seeking. Satan is mentioned in this quote, and it compared to Chillingworth throughout the book. But Chillingworth is not blindly evil, he does not so bad things for the sake of being bad. It might not even be revenge that is fueling his sins. It is just the pain that he feels whenever he sees Dimmesdale and Hester. But Chillingworth can’t really do anything violent towards Hester because he still loves