Robert C.

Evans
Department of English
Auburn University Montgomery

THE COMPLEXITIES OF “OLD ROGER” CHILLINGWORTH:

SIN AND REDEMPTION
IN HAWTHORNE’S THE SCARLET LETTER

One of the many paradoxes embedded within Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet
Letter is the irony that the character who begins, in some ways, as the person who seems
most obviously sinned against eventually becomes, himself, the greatest sinner. Roger
Prynne, the old, scholarly husband of Hester Prynne, enters the novel as the clear victim
of his wife’s adultery: she has undoubtedly betrayed him, as she herself readily admits
(“‘I have greatly wronged thee,’ murmured Hester”; [SL 53]). By the time the novel
concludes, however, Roger Prynne – who in the interim has adopted the perfectly
symbolic name “Roger Chillingworth” – has become the darkest and most malignant
figure in the novel. Indeed, Hawthorne repeatedly refers to him as “old Roger” – a term
often used as a nickname for Satan himself (see, e.g., Green 867). Part of the tragedy
depicted in the book, in fact, is the self-chosen, self-imposed degeneration of Roger
Prynne, a man who corrupts himself because he can neither forgive nor forget the
corruption of others. Hawthorne, of course, could easily have made Chillingworth a
wholly perverse and malignant figure right from the start, and indeed when Chillingworth
first presents himself, there even seem to be a few hints to this effect. Instead, however,
the first appearances of Chillingworth are actually wreathed in ambiguities, ironies, and
complexities, especially for anyone who is re-reading the novel and knows what will
happen later. Rather than depicting Chillingworth as a crude and uncomplicated villain,
Hawthorne instead makes him a figure who seems simultaneously mysterious,
sympathetic, and potentially dangerous. By paying close attention to the first
appearances of Chillingworth, we can come to a greater appreciation of the subtlety of
Hawthorne’s art and can also come to a greater awareness of the nature and depth of
Chillingworth’s eventual sin. Only when we see how Chillingworth begins can we
appreciate how far he ultimately falls.
The novel’s first references to Chillingworth occur in a recollection by Hester as
she stands, in Chapter II, in public humiliation on the scaffold. She remembers her
husband as a “man well stricken in years” and with “a pale, thin, scholar-like visage” (SL
43). Ironically, the latter phrase might just as easily apply to Arthur Dimmesdale, her
secret lover, and it applies to Dimmesdale especially in the later pages of the novel, after
Chillingworth has spent years secretly tormenting the adulterous minister. Chillingworth,
in effect, eventually helps to turn Dimmesdale, in some respects, into a physical copy of
himself, and it seems all the more ironic that he does so when we recall that both men are
indeed highly learned and highly trained in the uses of reason. Each man not only
possesses a “scholar-like visage,” but each has also spent years “por[ing] over many
ponderous books” (SL 43). Indeed, one of Chillingworth’s greatest sins is that he
eventually perverts the gift of reason – perhaps the greatest gift God bestows on man, and
the gift that traditionally distinguished man from the lower animals – by pursuing his
ungodly vengeance. The fact that he is such a highly learned man eventually makes him
all the more subtle, all the more cunning, and therefore all the more dangerous.
Ironically, the fact that he is so intelligent also makes him all the more responsible for the
sinful path he chooses to pursue and thus all the more spiritually self-destructive. By the
end of the novel, Chillingworth will have no one but himself to blame for the sins he has
committed.
Chillingworth’s physical appearance suggests at first that Hawthorne is planning
to depict him as a rather crude villain. Hester remembers him as being “slightly
deformed, with the left” (or “sinister”) “shoulder a trifle higher than the right.” He is
called, in fact, a “misshapen scholar” (SL 44), and these details seem to imply
symbolically that his soul and character may be as “deformed” as his body. Indeed, when
he first appears in Boston and is spotted by Hester from the scaffold, he is said to be
“clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume” (SL 44) – phrasing
(especially the word “savage”) that hints that his soul may already be tainted by
heathenish sin. It is, however, the peculiar combination of the “civilized” and the
“savage” that Hawthorne will stress again and again in his presentation of Chillingworth.
Indeed, part of what will make Chillingworth seem such a frightening figure is precisely
that he will combine a “savage” hatred (and desire for vengeance) with “civilized”
cunning and guile. In the end, it will be Chillingworth’s soul, far more than his costume,
that will seem in “disarray,” and in fact Chillingworth will emerge at the end of the book
as far more “savage” than any of the “heathen” Indians with whom he has been living.
Physically, Chillingworth is “small in stature” (SL 44), yet he will deliberately
diminish himself even more, ethically and spiritually, by the end of the book. He will
misuse the “remarkable intelligence” that is immediately apparent in his features, and by
the conclusion of the novel, the “slight deformity” of his body will seem as nothing when
compared to the enormous deformity of his soul (SL 44). For a man who has been
“chiefly accustomed to look inward,” Chillingworth will display a remarkable lack of
self-examination and self-perception. Hawthorne, however, refuses to present
Chillingworth, at first, as a simple or total villain. He hints that Chillingworth may
indeed have the potential for villainy, but he refuses at first to make the matter clear. He
does, of course, report that when Chillingworth first sees Hester, a “writhing horror
twist[s] itself across his features like a snake gliding swiftly over them” (SL 45). Such
phrasing seems almost too simple and obvious: snakes have long been associated with
evil, especially in Christian cultures, and Hawthorne seems, at first, to be indulging in
some especially unsubtle symbolism. Yet the phrasing suggests, at this point,
Chillingworth’s own shock and pain (his “horror”) rather than any intended villainy. The
narrator next reports that Chillingworth’s “face darkened with some powerful emotion,”
but the precise nature of that emotion is left carefully unspecified, and so Chillingworth
remains, for the moment, more a figure of mystery than of blatant evil. Likewise, when
the narrator reports that Chillingworth “controlled” that emotion – whatever it was – “by
an effort of his will” (SL 45), that fact itself can be seen as indicating either admirable
self-restraint or a desire to deceive. At this early point in the novel, then, neither we nor
Hester can be quite sure what Chillingworth is thinking or what he intends.
Ambiguities and ironies – both intended and unintended – continue to pervade the
early description of Chillingworth. Thus, when an anonymous member of the crowd tells
Chillingworth, “‘You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend’” (SL 45), the
speaker cannot possibly know how accurate his words are. Having just come, with
absolutely no preparation, upon the highly public scene of his wife being punished for
adultery, Chillingworth must indeed feel like a “‘stranger,’” or outsider, both in his own
marriage and in Puritan Boston. Meanwhile, the fact that he is accompanied by a
“‘savage companion’” (SL 45) will (once more) seem all the more ironic in light of his
own later savage treatment of Dimmesdale, just as his reference to his time “‘among the
heathen-folk’” (SL 45) seems ominous and portentous in view of his own later heathenish
attitudes and behavior. Chillingworth tells his anonymous interlocutor that he has been
“‘redeemed out of [his] captivity’” among the Indians (SL 45), but readers of the novel
who already have read the book will perceive the irony of his words, since he will soon
lead himself into a kind of spiritual captivity far more serious than the physical
imprisonment from which he has just been “‘redeemed.’” Thus, when the man with
whom he is conversing tells Chillingworth that it must “‘gladden [Chillingworth’s]
heart’” to have escaped his “‘troubles and sojourn in the wilderness’” (SL 45), he cannot
know how painful and ironic practically every word of his statement must seem. The
word “‘troubles,’” for instance, must seem ironic to Chillingworth (whose real troubles
have just begun), while the reference to an escape from the “‘wilderness’” must seem
ironic to any reader who knows what will happen later in the book. Chillingworth, after
all, is about to enter a moral “‘wilderness’” of his own making that will be far worse than
anything he has just escaped.
Further irony occurs when the anonymous citizen of Boston praises his town as a
place “‘where iniquity is searched out and punished in the sight of rulers and people’”
(SL 45), since the business of searching out and punishing iniquity (although not in plain
sight) will be Chillingworth’s self-appointed mission for most of the rest of the book.
Equally ironic is the moment when the anonymous Bostonian is about to describe
explicitly the nature of Hester’s sin and Chillingworth, obviously pained, quickly cuts
him off “with a bitter smile” (SL 45). Yet just when Chillingworth might seem to have
reason to feel bitter indeed, he wryly turns part of that bitterness against himself: “‘So
learned a man as you speak of should have learned this too [i.e., the potential for adultery
in a marriage between an old man and a young woman] in his books’” (SL 45). In other
words, just when Chillingworth might seem tempted, somewhat justifiably, to turn his
full anger against Hester, he seems to accept (maturely and reasonably and generously) a
great measure of personal responsibility for what has happened. He is not yet a
blackened villain; he is still, at this point, a man who can appreciate his own role in
having contributed to the circumstances that cause him so much bitterness.
Ironies, in this initial appearance of Chillingworth in Boston, continue to abound.
Thus at one point the anonymous citizen of Boston, referring to Hester’s partner in
adultery, speculates that “‘the guilty one stands looking at this sad spectacle, unknown of
man, and forgetting that God sees him’” (SL 46) – words that are definitely applicable to
Dimmesdale, but words that will also seem even more applicable to Chillingworth
himself by the end of the novel. Likewise, when Chillingworth responds by saying that
“‘The learned man’” (i.e., Hester’s husband) “‘should come himself to look into the
mystery’” (SL 46), he is being not only deliberately wry (and sly) but also unintentionally
ironic, since he will in fact spend the rest of the book looking “‘into the mystery’” of
other persons’ sins, but he will do so in such a way that he will inevitably entangle
himself in even greater sins of his own. Finally, near the end of his conversation with the
Bostonian, Chillingworth, speaking of Hester’s partner in “‘iniquity,’” vows, “‘he will be
known! – he will be known! – he will be known!’” (SL 46). He seems to forget,
however, that Hester’s partner already is known to God, the only Judge who ultimately
matters. Chillingworth’s declaration is therefore less a sign of any disinterested concern
for justice than an indication of his prideful (and sinful) yearning for personal revenge.
By the end of the book, Chillingworth himself “‘will be known’” by God for sins far
more serious than those committed by Dimmesdale.
Chillingworth’s next major appearance in the book is also full of ironies and
ambiguities that help complicate our sense of his character in general and of his sins in
particular. When he visits Hester in prison in Chapter IV (“The Interview”), he is himself
a temporary resident there while the local magistrates confer with “the Indian sagamores
respecting his ransom” (SL 51). The prison in which Chillingworth finds himself,
however, will eventually be as nothing compared to the prison of hatred and vengeful
thoughts to which he will soon confine himself. The latter will prove a kind of spiritual
bondage from which he will never really be ransomed. Meanwhile, the fact that he
presents himself to Hester as a physician is, of course, obviously ironic, since his role
throughout the book will mainly be to exacerbate, rather than relieve, the spiritual
sufferings of others, especially Dimmesdale. Thus, when Chillingworth promises
Hester’s jailer that he will help make her “‘more amenable to just authority’” (SL 51), his
words are more ironic than he realizes, since he himself will soon proceed to violate the
ultimate “just authority” of God’s commands.

Throughout this episode, Hawthorne depicts Chillingworth in subtly ambiguous

ways. Thus, immediately after Chillingworth enters Hester’s cell, his “first care” is given
to Pearl – a fact that might make him seem genuinely compassionate. The narrator
immediately reports, however, that Pearl’s “cries, as she lay writhing on the trundle-bed,
made it of peremptory necessity to postpone all other business to the task of soothing
her” (SL 51). Thus, while Chillingworth at first seems to be motivated by mercy toward a
suffering infant, his motives are soon revealed to be also significantly pragmatic. Similar
ambivalence is evident when he speaks to Hester “half coldly, half soothingly,” or when
he calls Pearl both “‘misbegotten’” (which suggests his bitterness) and “‘miserable’”
(which suggests some pity). Likewise, when he tells Hester that he cannot give her “‘a
sinless conscience’” (SL 51-52), his words can seem both cutting and compassionate.
There are times in this episode when Chillingworth seems almost Satanic (as when, as he
lays his “long forefinger on the scarlet letter,” the finger almost seems “to scorch Hester’s
breast, as if it had been red-hot” [SL 52]), but for the most part he comes across as
surprisingly sympathetic, in every sense of that word. Indeed, even Hester herself is
willing to concede that his motives may not be entirely malign: she feels that he may be
acting in accordance with “humanity, or principle,” although she also entertains the
possibility that he may be prompted to act by a kind of “refined cruelty” (SL 53). The
important point is that Chillingworth’s motives at first seem just as mysterious (and
therefore complex and intriguing) to Hawthorne’s readers as they do to Hester.
Chillingworth is not a cardboard villain, a melodramatic, Machiavellian demon. He is an
intelligent, suffering human being, and thus (ironically) he will seem all the more
personally responsible for his eventual misuse of that intelligence and for the suffering he
ultimately causes. If Chillingworth were not as thoughtful and capable of compassion as
he seems in this episode, he would not seem as blameworthy and as guilty of genuine sin
as he ultimately shows himself to be.

When Chillingworth begins to talk seriously to Hester, he reveals himself as

genuinely both a “man of thought” and a man of some tenderness. He accepts partial
responsibility for Hester’s sin, blaming it both on “‘my folly, and thy weakness’” (SL 53).
Yet his words here, like most of his words throughout this scene, are significantly double-
edged. Thus, any folly he exhibited in the past will seem minor compared to the spiritual
folly he will display later in the book, and any past weakness that he attributes to Hester
will pale in comparison with his own weakness (and her own strength) later in the novel.
Likewise, when Chillingworth humbly describes himself as being, at the time he married
Hester, “‘a man already in decay’” (SL 53), his candor seems admirable, but the spiritual
decay he will bring upon himself as the narrative develops will seem far greater than any
physical decay he has displayed before this point. Similarly, the “‘physical deformity’”
that Chillingworth readily admits will seem insignificant when compared with the
deformity of character he will exhibit later. Just as in the past he had hoped to “‘veil’”
his physical defects, so in the future he will try to hide and disguise his defects of spirit,
and just as in the past he had tried to “‘feed the hungry dream of knowledge’” (SL 53), so,
in the future, he will be driven by an even more voracious desire for knowledge of an
altogether different and darker kind. Chillingworth tells Hester that he literally has
recently come “‘out of the vast and dismal forest,’” but anyone who has already read the
book knows that he is about to enter a far more dangerous and dismal spiritual wilderness
of his own making.

Practically everything Chillingworth says in this scene seems ironic, at least to

any reader who knows the later plot of the novel. Thus Chillingworth confesses that in
the past he “‘lived in vain’” (SL 53), but his later life will seem far more full of vanity
than anything that came before. Similarly, he states that his world had once seemed
“‘cheerless,’” but the only cheer he will experience in the future will be the perverse
happiness of inflicting pain on others. Likewise, he describes himself as having once
been “‘lonely and chill’” (SL 53), but those days will seem as nothing compared with the
spiritual isolation he will suffer by the end of the text. Finally, he says that all he desired
in the past was a “‘simple bliss’” which he hoped “‘might yet be mine’” (SL 53). Such
bliss might (of course) still be his if he were only capable of mercy. Unfortunately,
however, he will destroy any chances of any kind of bliss if he elects – as he is about to
elect – to choose vengeance. Chillingworth emerges in this scene as an exceptionally
complex human being. On the one hand, he is capable of plaintively and insightfully
telling Hester, “‘We have wronged each other,’” and he is also capable of promising her
(in a sentence masterfully designed by Hawthorne), “‘Therefore, as a man who has not
thought and philosophized in vain, I seek no vengeance and plot no evil . . . .’” But this
sentence, of course, does not end there; instead, it continues with two crucial further
words “‘against thee’” (SL 53). Only now does Chillingworth’s full capacity for evil, and
his full desire for revenge, begin to become apparent. In some ways that desire seems
perfectly natural, but in other ways it also seems both frightening and repugnant.
Chillingworth has already been presented as a character with whom we could sympathize
to some degree, but now he also increasingly emerges as a man whom we must begin to
reject and condemn.
 Thus, when Chillingworth begins to smile “with a smile of dark and self-relying
intelligence” (SL 53), he begins to display, far more obviously than before, the
egocentrism and the intellectual pride that will finally make him the greatest sinner in the
book. From this point on, in fact, the more he talks, the more his speech becomes a tissue
of unintended, damaging, and ultimately damning ironies. Thus he begins to employ
religious language in highly (if inadvertently) self-indicting ways, as when he promises to
be a man who “‘devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery’”
(SL 53). Similarly, he later promises that he will not “‘interfere with Heaven’s own
method of retribution’” against Hester’s secret partner, and, furthermore, that he will not
“‘to my own loss, betray him [i.e., the secret lover] to the gripe [i.e., the grip] of human
law’” (SL 54). Yet interfering with Heaven’s methods is precisely what Chillingworth
will later do, and he ultimately does so (ironically) to his own real spiritual loss. Thus,
there is a special irony in Chillingworth’s words when (sounding more and more like a
cheap stage villain), he vows (concerning the secret sinner), “‘Sooner or later, he must
needs be mine! . . . Let him hide himself in outward honor, if he may! Not the less he
shall be mine!’” (SL 54). It will, after all, be Chillingworth, at least as much as
Dimmesdale, who will “‘hide himself in outward honor,’” and finally it will be
Chillingworth, far more than Dimmesdale, who will become subjected to a dark and
vengeful power.

Chillingworth insists that Hester should not “‘betray’” him (even though she has
already done so in the obvious sense [SL 54]), but it is finally Chillingworth, of course,
who betrays himself. Chillingworth warns Hester not to “‘fail’” him by revealing his
secret, but it is, of course, Chillingworth who fails himself, spiritually, by maintaining
that secret for so many years and (more important) by using that secret to torment and
persecute another. By the end of Chapter IV, Chillingworth – for the very first time – is
described as “old Roger” Chillingworth (SL 54) – a name with clear Satanic overtones.
Likewise, by the end of that chapter, Hester for the first time links him with the legendary
“‘Black Man’” of the forest (another name linked with Satan), and she even wonders
whether Chillingworth intends to seek “‘the ruin of [her] soul.’” In response,
Chillingworth replies, with another cryptic smile, “‘Not thy soul . . . . No, not thine!’”
(SL 55). Clearly he means to suggest that the soul he intends to ruin is that of her secret
partner, but by this point it should also have become clear to practically every reader
(even those reading the book for the first time) that the soul most in danger belongs to
Chillingworth himself. In this masterfully constructed and subtly composed chapter,
Hawthorne carefully charts, step-by-step, Chillingworth’s own self-chosen spiritual
degeneration, so that the man who seemed in some ways admirable and sympathetic at
the beginning of the chapter has indeed turned himself into a kind of potentially Satanic
figure by the end. By the time Chapter IV concludes, Roger Prynne (the relative victim)
has turned himself, in more ways than one, into “old Roger” Chillingworth (the
malignant sinner).

Works Cited or Consulted

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Gross, Theodore L. and Stanley Wertheim. Hawthorne, Melville, and Stephen Crane; A
Critical Bibliography. New York: Free Press, 1971.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Person, 3-166.

Kopley, Richard. The Threads of The Scarlet Letter: A Study of Hawthorne’s

Transformative Art. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003.

Muirhead, Kimberly Free. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter: A Critical

Resource Guide and Comprehensive Annotated Bibliography of Literary Criticism, 1950-
2000. Lewiston, ME: Mellen, 2004.

Person, Leland, ed. The Scarlet Letter and Other Writings, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
New York: Norton, 2005.

Reynolds, Larry J., ed. A Historical Guide to Nathaniel Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001.