Roger Chillingworth, evil and mischievous as he is, has exiled himself from himself. He has been taken over by a demon that is causing him to do such cruel things he would have never done in the past.
This story he is referred to as a leech, which could be connected to how he sucks the truth out of Hester’s and Dimmesdales sin, but I think it has to do with how he is sucking the innocence out of himself. As he does so he continues to exile himself from the Chillingworth that Hester married years before. He has turned into this devil like creature, and what another person would usually find terrible, Chillingworth seems to be enjoying his new nature. The demon that now lives in his soul and causes him to act so wickedly is jealousy. In the beginning of the book while Hester is standing on the scaffold in complete shame Chillingworth, tells Hester “Mine was the first wrong, when I betrayed thy budding youth into a false and unnatural relation with my decay.” He knows that Hester doesn’t love him and may have never loved him, and the fact that she had a baby with another man whom she probably loved probably kills him.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteThis is a good start. Note you need a few more specific examples, but the ideas are nice. The Leech - could refer to how he sucks the souls of his victim(s) and this sucking changes him, much like a leech gets bloated. He also becomes greedy for more, but the more he sucks, the more he transforms.