The truth can change and mean one thing to someone and another to someone else. .
Are humans born innately good, evil or both?.
"Therefore, as a man who has not thought and philosophized in vain, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against thee. Between thee and me, the scale hangs fairly balanced " (67). Humans are born good, but they carry a seed of evil within them, which may sprout based on their environment and weed itself deep within their hearts. When Hester's husband, Roger Chillingworth, first came into her cell, he promised her many times he would not hurt her or her baby in anyway. Chillingworth started out with good intentions, he healed Hester and her baby, who was born by another man, which is quite a feat for a husband to do for his adulterous wife. " 'And what am I now?" he demanded, looking into her face, and permitting the whole evil within him to be written on his features. " I already told thee what I am! A fiend! Who made me so?""(156). Chillingworth was bent finding Hester's man to seek his revenge for nine years. When he finally found Hester's man, Dimmesdale, he stuck by Dimmesdale's side like a leech, gently pressing Dimmesdale to confess his sin and take his punishment. Chillingworth's revenge consumed him and it was the only reason he had to live, he died a year after Dimmesdale dies because there was no more meaning in his life. Chillingworth changed from an intellectual, fair man to someone who was obsessed with revenge until there was nothing left in him. .
"The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies, and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for ever do battle with the world, but be a women in it" (234). On the other hand, Pearl was considered to be born evil because she was the product of her mother's sin.