All people are sinners in the eyes of the Puritan community. Original sin is said to be one thing that humans cannot escape; it has no exceptions. In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne develops the story of Hester Prynne and Roger Chillingworth to explore sin in a Puritan Settlement. Hawthorne utilizes the romantic novel to depict just how indifferent Puritans could be toward sinners of their congregation in the 17th century. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne portrays sin as a passionate act that transforms individuals by displaying the drastic transformations various characters undergo. Hawthorne demonstrates the effects of sin on human identity in the transformation of, main character, Hester Prynne. When the reader first meets Hester,
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Over the course of the novel, Chillingworth’s hunger for revenge becomes so incontrollable that it ends up being the only thing he has to live for. His features grow darker and he becomes more hunched over as years of craving revenge pass by. Hester and Chillingworth have the chance to speak again when Hester approaches him on a secluded beach. Chillingworth reminisces on his past saying, “all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years…no life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine – kind, true, just, and of constant, if not warm affections? Was I not all this?” (206). Hawthorne affirms, with this passage, that Chillingworth recognizes that this spirit of revenge he fosters has changed his nature significantly. He understands that he is, as the narrator describes the phenomenon, “a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office” (203). Chillingworth is transforming into this dark figure, the devil, because he has taken up sin, a devil’s office. Hawthorne utilizes Chillingworth’s obsession with revenge in order to reveal that sin, although passionate, can and will have a negative impact on both the physical appearance and mindset of an
Over the course of the novel, Chillingworth’s hunger for revenge becomes so incontrollable that it ends up being the only thing he has to live for. His features grow darker and he becomes more hunched over as years of craving revenge pass by. Hester and Chillingworth have the chance to speak again when Hester approaches him on a secluded beach. Chillingworth reminisces on his past saying, “all my life had been made up of earnest, studious, thoughtful, quiet years…no life had been more peaceful and innocent than mine – kind, true, just, and of constant, if not warm affections? Was I not all this?” (206). Hawthorne affirms, with this passage, that Chillingworth recognizes that this spirit of revenge he fosters has changed his nature significantly. He understands that he is, as the narrator describes the phenomenon, “a striking evidence of man’s faculty of transforming himself into a devil, if he will only, for a reasonable space of time, undertake a devil’s office” (203). Chillingworth is transforming into this dark figure, the devil, because he has taken up sin, a devil’s office. Hawthorne utilizes Chillingworth’s obsession with revenge in order to reveal that sin, although passionate, can and will have a negative impact on both the physical appearance and mindset of an