The True Nature of Roger Chillingworth

Ayaka Kobayashi Keio Academy of New York

The story of The Scarlet Letter begins with the prison, indicating the sin of humans as the theme of the story. Indeed, all the main characters in the story, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, Roger Chillingworth, and Pearl, are told to be related to sin in some way. Among them, Chillingworth has long been considered as the most sinful man. However, when one looks at the overall storyline objectively, he is a miserable man who is betrayed by his young wife. Even though he should be blamed for his mistreatment of Hester, adultery is a heavier sin, and she did not apologize for her sin but treated Chillingworth as the “Black man” (Hawthorne-1850, 52). In addition, some factors in the story seem ambiguous and possible to change his general impression and position in the story. Through discussion of these points, the paper reconsiders the true nature of Roger Chillingworth, the allegedly worst villain of the romance.

First, it’s necessary to analyze the reasons why Chillingworth is a villain in the story. Obviously, the biggest reason is his obsession with revenge on a man who had a child with Hester. While it’s mentioned throughout the story, readers can confirm that revenge was his solitary motivation for life when “All his strength and energy…seemed at once to desert him” after Dimmesdale’s death (p.153). To revenge against Dimmesdale, Chillingworth “commit the unpardonable sin that Hawthorne hates the most” (Takaba-2007, p.2). Chillingworth makes contact with Dimmesdale in an attempt to investigate him in Chapter 10. Here, Chillingworth is said to “dig into the poor clergyman’s heart, like a miner searching for gold” (p.81). Since Hawthorne regards the human mind as the most sacred field, this act is considered to be an unpardonable sin (Takaba-2007, p.2). Also, since Hawthorne had been wary of science, he tends to describe the occupation of villains in his works as related to science (Bao-cang-2020, 5). Taking these into consideration, Chillingworth’s job as a physician implies Hawthorne’s intention to make him an inhumane and cold-blooded man who opposes the Puritan religious doctrine and threatens society.

From the above, what makes Chillingworth a villain is his extremely strong obsession with revenge and the author’s characterization of him; It is reasonable for Hawthorne to spotlight Chillingworth’s negative aspects rather than describe him objectively in order to clarify his position in the story. However, still, there are some positive elements of him. In Chapter 10, he is said to be “calm in temperament, kindly” and “a pure and upright man” throughout life (Hawthorne-1850, 81). Thus, he was not evil in nature; he was an ordinary man who owns both positive and negative aspects. Therefore, if there is a way Chillingworth can be free from sin before his death, his position in the story can change from the villain to an ordinary person who is as much sinful as other people like Hester and Dimmesdale, as they also commit sin.

Regarding salvation for Chillingworth, there are some factors that should be taken into consideration. First, let us rethink who sleeps with Hester in the tomb. Generally, the one is believed to be Dimmesdale. However, it’s strange that given his high status as a Puritan minister,

Dimmesdale didn’t have his grave for many years after his death. Considering that his friends, Governor Bellingham and John Willson have “stubborn fidelity” to Dimmesdale, it’s unlikely that they left him dead without a grave (p.152). For the same reason, they are not likely to let him sleep under the grave with the letter “A”. If Dimmesdale is not a person under the grave, it is assumed that the one is Chillingworth. This is highly possible since Hester didn’t divorce Chillingworth officially until the end of the story, and Chillingworth “bequeathed a very considerable amount of property” to Pearl, Hester’s child, at his last will (p.153). In order to bequeath such a great property, he must have followed certain procedures using his real name, Prynne (Iriko-1995, pp.8-9). In this way, it is assumed that the relationship between Hester and Chillingworth is officially recognized as married, and it is natural that they sleep under the grave together. The fact that Chillingworth shows mercy to Pearl as a form of inheritance and sleeps with Hester after his death indicates the salvation of Chillingworth at the end of his life.

The second factor that might change the role of Chillingworth is his possibility of being an alchemist. Chillingworth is introduced as a physician, but he does not have a medical degree but uses techniques based on alchemical knowledge (Takaba-2007, p.3). In the novel, there is a description of his laboratory which says “not such a modern man of science would reckon even tolerably complete, but provided with ….chemicals, which the practiced alchemist knew well” (p.80). Accordingly, Chillingworth is not a modern scientist, Hawthorne hated, but an anachronistic alchemist. This leads to the possibility of Chillingworth playing a role in making Dimmesdale confess his sin and become a truly holy man through his evil deeds by using “weeds” to make “drugs of potency”(p.82).

The last factor for the salvation of Chillingworth is the one for Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale once turns into a devil when Hester tells him that Chillingworth is her husband. At that moment, he possesses “violence of passion, which…the portion of him which the Devil claimed”, and it is called “a dark transfiguration” (p.117). He recovers from the evil state when he “forgives” Hester; he is described as “out of an abyss of sadness, but no anger”(p.118). When Dimmesdale who has been possessed by the Devil even for the moment can regain his humanity by forgiving Hester, Chillingworth should be relieved in the same way. This is likely to occur, all the more because after the death of Dimmesdale, he lost all the energies that derived from the devil inside him, and it is stated that Dimmesdale and Chillingworth may have found “their earthly stock of hatred and antipathy transmuted into golden love” (p.153). Therefore, there is a possibility that Chillingworth forgives Dimmesdale within the time between Dimmesdale’s death and his own death. He also earns the punishment by sleeping under the grave with the dishonored character “A” with Hester.

Finally, while it seems undeniable that Roger Chillingworth is a villain who commits a sin that Hawthorne regards as unpardonable, many factors prove that he was not purely evil, indicating his salvation in the end. If even one of the characters in the story could notice the devil in Chillingworth as just one of many aspects of him, the seemingly pessimistic conclusion of the story would be significantly different, and the same applies to Hawthorne’s contemporary readers. We tend to judge people just by looking at a few aspects of them. The distorted image of

people, for better or worse, causes misunderstanding, forming obstacles in social relationships. If we are careful enough to reconsider our impression of people as reflecting not the whole picture but fragments of them, we will have a broader perspective on others and thereby the world can change the narrative of our life totally. Just as the letter A goes through metamorphosis in the romance, so Chillingworth has the alchemic power to transform the whole narrative of The Scarlet Letter.

References

Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1850). The Scarlet Letter. Ed. Leland S. Person. New York.: Norton, 2017.

Iriko, Fumiko (1995). 「 Chillingworthのゆくえ最終章を読む」. 『英⽂学研究』. 71巻, 8-9. Retrieved from: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/elsjp/71/2/71_KJ00006942969/_pdf/-char/ja

Takaba, Junko (2007). “A Study of The Scarlet Letter ―Chillingworth and His Alchemistic Transfigurations―.” Nihon University, Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies, October 31, 2007. Retrieved from: https://gssc.dld.nihon-u.ac.jp/wp-content/uploads/journal/ pdf08/8-303-314-takaba.pdf

ZHANG, Bao-cang (2020). “A Tentative Defense for the Villain Roger Chillingworth in The Scarlet Letter.” Journal of Literature and Art Studies, July 2020, Vol. 10, No. 7, 575-583. doi: 10.17265/2159-5836/2020.07.008