Why Is Chillingworth Guilty For Dimmesdale's Death

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”, Chillingworth is guilty of Dimmesdale’s death. For one he tries to poison Dimmesdale with some medicine, he makes him suffer mentally, and he tortures him for it all and tries to make him feel guilty for all that he’s done. Chillingworth believes that Dimmesdale was the father of Pearl, Prynne’s baby after he found out that she got pregnant from Dimmesdale. Chillingworth came to visit Hester, only to find out she was in prison for committing adultery. Obviously Chillingworth knew it was with another man. He tries to get Hester to admit who the father of her baby is but she refused to tell him who it was. Chillingworth figures out that it is Dimmesdale who got Hester pregnant, and who’s the father of Pearl. He wants to get revenge on Dimmesdale. He tortured Dimmesdale by making him feel guilty. Later on Dimmesdale died, which shows that Chillingworth’s antagonizing could have led up to this event. …show more content…
Chillingworth was trying to make it seem like he was actually trying to help Dimmesdale by giving him medicine, which many people believed. But he wanted to kill Dimmesdale. “While thus suffering under bodily disease...trouble of the soul.” But this was all part of Chillingworth’s plan to get his revenge on Dimmesdale.
The last reason to show that Chillingworth is in fact guilty. He wants Dimmesdale to pay for what he did to Hester. He wanted Dimmesdale to get revenge and make him pay for his sin against their society, with the church. Now Chillingworth only wanted to torture Dimmesdale, not to actually kill him. But with all the suffering that he had went to through, was one of the reasons why he had died. Some would say that Chillingworth did not kill Dimmesdale, but you have to read between the lines. If all the pieces are put together then it shows that Chillingworth is definitely guilty of Dimmesdale’s