Chillingworth's Quest For Truth In The Scarlet Letter

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Anmol Singh Singh 1 Ms. Gregori IB English Period 3 8 December 2014 Chillingworth’s Quest for Truth Roger Chillingworth, the infamous cold man of ‘science’ seeks vengeance against Hester’s lover and narrows down his pursuit to the feeble and oblivious Dimmesdale. This excerpt from The Scarlett Letter occurs when Chillingworth earns a reputation in the town, and proceeds to live with Dimmesdale in order to unravel the sins of the unholy minister. Throughout the passage, Chillingworth searches for the truth behind Dimmesdale and searches Dimmesdale’s home just as a miner searches for gold. In the passage, Hawthorne parallels a fiery Roger Chillingworth to a gold miner and bluntly creates a duality between Chillingworth’s…show more content…
Driven by a fire to find Hester’s lover, Chillingworth changes from ‘calm in temperament’ to a terrible fascination full of fierce and calm necessity as he plunges into the deep and unknown realm of Dimmesdale’s soul. Chillingworth’s hunger in unraveling the truth which upholds Dimmesdale takes control of Chillingworth, and “never set him free again until he had done all its bidding (5-6).” Chillingworth also glimmers out of his physician eyes, a glimmer burning blue and ominous, and Hawthorne creates a parallel between the eyes of Chillingworth to the reflection of a furnace to describe Chillingworth’s hideous and corrupt transformation in attempting to seek out the truth. The characterization in the passage ties in to the science vs. religion theme evident throughout the novel as Hawthorne creates parallels between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. The theme of science vs. religion is a universal theme and describes the relationship between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Another aspect of this passage is the name of the chapter which is “The leech and his patient”. Hawthorne uses the title of chapter ten to create a metaphor and ironically state the similarities between Chillingworth and a leech. Just as doctors use leeches to draw out bad blood, Chillingworth is proceeds to draw out the sins and bad deeds of Dimmesdale. Hawthorne implements the use of a metaphor as a title for chapter 10 to create a duality between the drawing of blood between leeches to the relationship between Dimmesdale and Chillingworth, where Dimmesdale is the patient and Chilingworth is the leech. Hawthorne conveys the idea that Chillingworth is a leech and is sucking the life out of
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