Roger Chillingworth
A character sketch by: Lindsay Rucker
Chillingworth is the old, ugly, cruel, deformed, and demented
husband of Hester Prynne. He is presented as a scholar and
physician, who has traveled to distant places before deciding to settle in America. His lack of sensitivity is shown in his choosing such a young, naive, and beautiful woman as his bride. His lack of chivalry is displayed in his act of sending his young and inexperienced wife ahead of him to a new world, leaving
her to fend for herself. His cruelty is seen when he does not try to contact her in New England for two years. It is obvious that a loving relationship has never existed between Hester and Chillingworth.
Chillingworth's cruel and unsympathetic nature is reflected in
his choice of a name, which he assumed to hide his identity. His vengefulness and evil disposition are revealed in his cruel manipulation and torture of Dimmesdale.
English: Hester Prynne & Pearl before the stocks
Rosa Hester Prynne 1
English: Portrait of William Chillingworth (1602-1...As a merciless, dark man, Chillingworth seems to be the devil himself whose diabolic designs wreck havoc on the already torn apart
Dimmesdale. Chillingworth is a vicious man, truly a 'leech' as he sucks the lifeblood out his victim.
Hawthorne clearly indicates that Chillingworth's sin of tormenting Dimmesdale is greater than Dimmesdale's sin of adultery with his wife. In spite of his wickedness, both Hester and Dimmesdale forgive him. Chillengworth is the pseudonym assumed by Hester's husband. He is a well-educated man and becomes the symbol of evil in the story. He is consumed with revenge over the wrong he has suffered in losing his wife. Basiclly, this man is so consumed by his evil, that he becomes the villain of the story. He is seen throughout the entire novel trying to find out who the father of his wife's child is. He...