These three sinners, in the eyes of the puritan community are the beautiful Hester Prynne, the esteemed Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and the cold-hearted doctor, Roger Chillingworth. Like Hawthorne, I believe that evil is the nature of man but that there are different magnitudes of evil; some choose to fight it, like Hester, and some choose to give in, like Chillingworth.

In the novel, Hester received a scarlet letter, “A,” for her sins, which she had to wear upon her chest for the rest of her life in Boston. This was the Puritan way of punishing her for her criminal action of adultery. She wondered the streets to be given sour looks from all. This caused so much mental and physical anguish that she eventually questioned why she should li

Dimmesdale is also an evil man because he is a man of God, but he cannot find the strength to admit openly that he has had an affair with Hester. His weakness is the reason he is more evil than Hester. Dimmesdale does not want to admit that he sinned against God because he is a great servant of him through the ministery. Dimmesdale strives to be perfect, but because of the sinful act of passion that he has committed, his “record for God” has been tarnished forever. After seven long years of struggle, Dimmesdale does triumph over his weakness at the day he predicted, judgment day, the day he would die.

Chillingworth notices that something more than physical is wrong with him. He starts to dig deeper and deeper until he finds what he is looking for, but not with destroying Dimmesdale’s life even more. Hawthorne illustrates this event when he remarks, “Now, there was something ugly and evil in his face, which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him” (44). By chapter 14, Chillingworth’s transformation seems to be complete, and Chillingworth becomes aware of what has happened. It is too late to change who he is and who he has become.

Midway through the novel the audience’s view of the character changes dramatically. The major turning point is when we find out to what extent Chillingworth will go through to find personal information about his patient, Dimmesdale. Hawthorne describes it as “The physician advanced directly in front of his patient, laid his hand upon his bosom, and thrust aside the vestment, that, hitherto, had always covered it even from the professional eye” (49).

ve if it weren’t for her Pearl. Pearl was a bundle of life sent from God to remind her of her wrong

Some topics in this essay:
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