Revenge In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Revenge is a powerful tool that can be used to avenge for the sake of justice or destroy for the sake of one’s pride. One might launch a lengthy plan over several days or years to initiate a quick though firm attack upon some oblivious victim, stopping a selfish being in his/hers tracks. However, such a plan can lead to a break with sanity or even the destruction of one’s own soul. Such a situation transpires through the character Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The values that he maintains throughout the course of events in the novel manifest themselves in the cruel revenge he takes upon the protagonist Arthur Dimmesdale. to spawn the very example of a sinful being, categorized in the highest of offenses …show more content…
Silently, in the eyes of only one plebeian can the unseen and unheard violent action be seen and understood to be a parasite in the mind of Dimmesdale that eats away for seven years that until then, the truth of the matter would never see the light of day and will continue to dwell under the very skin of the sinner who can’t display this unimaginable pain that creates a dark void where only the true protagonist and antagonist can lay their eyes upon the unholy secret that is adultery. With many years passing, “many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original significance ”(Ch 13). Thus making things difficult to Chillingworth and his master scheme to torture a man’s soul and kick him while he is down. The hidden scarlet letter under Dimmesdale’s chest would soon be revealed if he so pleases to. With all the pain and agony that it has caused upon him, why not show it to the people? Why stay hidden in the shadows were a lurker feeds of your soul to better his own? The question that have no end and the answers that have no voice will soon be the death of not one man, but two men who have traveled along this treacherous path with phony hope and judgement at the end of the sunless …show more content…
Thus, the only purpose to live in this false world, is to see a never ending pain in the life of Dimmesdale in order to have a sense of accomplishment in Chillingworth for the emptiness that can be found in the hole in his heart where his love for Hester had once been. With his pledge that, “there was no place so secret, --no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me ” (Ch 23). The desire for this was tremendously dedicated with no means to an end anytime soon until, the truth was spoken. Finally, the truth had set Dimmesdale free, free from Chillingworth’s grasp and the society he lived in, all in order to feel at peace with oneself in the afterlife. However, the wrath of Chillingworth’s manipulation will soon catch up to him, nonetheless, continuing his revenge and selfish agenda that may or may not meet up again with Dimmesdale. Only the reader can disclose this turn of events and truly find their own pleasant outcome with the series of events unfolding behind the scenes of The Scarlet Letter leading up to an unknown end to the reverend minister and the wicked mind of the docile looking