'The Worst Sinner in the Scarlet Letter\r'

'The Worst Sinner in The cherry-red earn In The sanguine letter there argon three primary(prenominal) infernal regionners presented to the reader. Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth are all written with their trail in forms of sin, and each has a unique get by mechanism for their sins and criminality. Sin, at this time, was a staggeringly authorised part of daily life, and penalty for mavin’s sins was universally seen as non only a demonstrable thing, but a necessary live up to to keep the people of the colony pure. both Hester and Dimmesdale receive great punishments for their sin of adultry.However, one temperament is portrayed as a true sinner, more than so than the others. Roger Chillingworth is by out-of-the-way(prenominal) the worst sinner in The violent Letter. This is make apparent by his m either attempts to harm Dimmesdale mentally and spiritually, and more importantly his complete lack of compunction for his actions. It is t his absence seizure of misdeed for his sin that shows that he is a sinner much worsened than any other timbre in the view as. Roger Chillingworth is Hester Prynne’s husband in the original, though this is kept secret from the t take inspeople through the end of the book.He, upon arriving and seeing his wife upon the scaffold, vows to take retaliation on the man whom Hester commit her sin. Though he chooses to leave Hester to carry the punishment given to her, his hatred towards her is never hidden. Chillingworth attaches himself to Dimmesdale upon seeing his grief, in hopes of discovering who the father of Hester’s child is. And once realizing it is Dimmesdale, Chillingworth proceeds to continually torment Dimmesdale as his personal r howeverge and punishment, to the point of making Dimmesdale ill even further beyond his original mourning(prenominal) depleted health.He does this with no wo or compassion towards the man he torments, nor any recognition for his actions as sinful. As the novel progresses, he takes on an almost atrocious record, having no feelings whatsoever save for those of condemnation towards Hester and Dimmesdale. Guilt is the thing left totally absent from Roger Chillingworth’s character, and it is this lack that defines him. (â€Å" succinct”) Biblically, guilt is defined in some(prenominal) ways. The Hebrew word asam is used biblically, and inwardness both â€Å"guilt” and â€Å"guilt go. The record says that asam is a part of debt unto one’s neighbor, which can be physical debt or, frequently, sins against others. This asam is a necessary part of sin, and in its absence is sin in itself. This is one of the largest pieces of rise of Chillingworth’s sin, as he feels no guilt, nor gives any guilt offering unto those whom he has sinned against. Asam is a guilt which we must put up amends for, which in Chillingworth’s shell, no attempt to do so was make. â€Å"The j urisprudence in Leviticus 5:14-6:7 and amount 5:5-10 makes this special quality of asam clear.When person incurs â€Å"guilt” toward a neighbor, full replication must be made, plus an unneeded fifth. And so, in addition, a â€Å"guilt offering” must be made to the Lord, because when we sin against others and incur â€Å"indebtedness” to them, we violate the methodicalness that god prescribes for his world and his people, and have olibanum incurred a debt toward him alike. ” (Motyer) Chillingworth’s sin is also worse than the others’ due simply to the spirit of his sins. Adultery is a sin of passion, a lustful passion.Though adultry is one of the biblical x Commandments (Bible), in the case of The vermilion Letter it is a crime perpetrate in a moment, and regretted there afterward by the devil involved. Both Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale pay penance for their sin, in each their own form, from the day that it happens. Heste r is pained with guilt for months, and once her child is clear she is imprisoned, and later forced to become a symbol of sin to the entire friendship for years to come, publicly putting her pathos on display.Dimmesdale is plagued by the same guilt as Hester, but because he is not discovered publicly is tormented spiritually and mentally. He begins to physically punish himself, and his regret and guilt weigh so intemperately that they make his physically ill for years. Roger Chillingworth’s sin, however, was not in an instant. His was calculated, drawn out, and affiliated with malice towards both Dimmesdale and Hester for years on end.He tormented Dimmesdale psychologically for years, and drained what precise life Dimmesdale had in him out behind and intentionally. He felt no guilt for these sins, nor was he ever penalize for them in life. â€Å"Certainly, if the meteor kindled up the sky, and break the earth, with an awfulness that admonished Hester Prynne and the cl ergyman of the day of judgment, then might Roger Chillingworth have passed with them for the arch-fiend, standing there, with a smile and scowl, to claim his own.So vivid was the expression, or so intense the ministers perception of it, that it seemed notwithstanding to remain painted on the darkness, after the meteor had vanished, with an effect as if the course and all things else were at once decimate” (Hawthorne. Chapter 12. ) This passage shows the reader the malevolent nature that Chillingworth begins to take on in the novel, apparent almost inhuman in his fast(a) hatred for Dimmesdale, and the torture he inflicts upon him. at once again his lack of remorse is convey plainly for the reader.The themes of sin and revenge in The red Letter are made prominent and clear, as Hawthorne tends to express every(prenominal) theme in the novel. The two are closely tied together in the case of Roger Chillingworth. In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne shows that at the time of the novel, sin was an extremely important role in everyday life, in particular in a Puritan association such as the one in the novel. Sin is something that everyone retrieves must be punished, in this life if at all possible, as well as in the near.In the case of old Roger Chillingworth, his sin was not punished in his worldly life, which leads us to believe that divine retribution in the beside will be even great for him than the book’s other sinners. The shady man is used in this book to mean the devil, and it is made clear that doing the play of the Black Man, or essentially doing things against God’s bidding, puts a denounce on one’s soul that carries into the next life. (â€Å"Sin”) Here is where the concept ties into revenge.This implied mark on the soul is expressed in the theme of revenge in the book. Roger Chillingworth, in his pursuit of revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale, receives a mark on his soul which twists him into a force of evil- a more dear effect than the sins of any other character in the book. Hawthorne expresses here both his own views, as well as the universal view of the time, that a sin committed out of the type of hatred which Chillingworth exhibits, is a tool of the devil, and in itself causes a metamorphose in humans into something more sinister.It is this perspective which is so clearly shown in Chillingworth’s increasingly hideous appearance, and the dehumanization of his character into an instrument solely of spiteful revenge. (â€Å" penalize”) Throughout The Scarlet Letter, it is made lavishly clear what view the reader is think to take of Roger Chillingworth. Consumed by his sin, he is for good altered into an evil spirit for the acts of revenge he has pursued. This condemnation Hawthorne describes expresses without a interrogative to the reader that Chillingworth’s sin is far worse than that of the remorseful and solemn Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale.Who, though sinned greatly and were punished, were in the end lucky in the eye of the Puritan participation and quite possibly in the eyes of God as people who knew and repented their sins, and were therefore forgiven. It is clear that Roger Chillingworth is the only character deeply changed enough for the worse to be considered a sinner of any damning proportion, and is made out to be the worst sinner of any character in The Scarlet Letter. Work Cited: Nathaniel Hawthorne. , and DeMaiolo, James F.The Scarlet Letter. impudently York: Applause, 1996. Print. Motyer, Stephen. â€Å"Guilt. ” BibleStudyTools. com. Salem Communications Corporations, 1997. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. â€Å"The Scarlet Letter Theme of Sin. ” Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc. , 2012. Web. 19 Nov. â€Å"The Scarlet Letter Theme of Revenge. ” Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc. , 2012. Web. 19 Nov. â€Å"The Scarlet Letter Summary. ” Shmoop. Shmoop University, Inc. , 2012. Web. 19 Nov. 2012. The Holy Bible . second ed. New York: American Bible Society, 1992. Print.\r\n'