The Tortured Soul

The Tortured Soul

Fraying away, somber and dreary, trapped inside this torturous spell, was the poor Reverend Dimmesdale. Everybody thinks that a reverend, since he is a part of the Church, can do no harm. Unfortunately, he can. We have all heard of the sexually involved priests from the news, a while back, and yet again in the book, The Scarlet Letter. Reverend Dimmesdale is a key character in the book. He commits adultery with a married woman, named Hester Prynne, and they create a child…Pearl. Dimmesdale was passionately in love with Hester, and still is, yet there is one problem…Hester’s husband. Roger Chillingworth is his name, and he is back in town from being lost at sea. After his adulterous act, Dimmesdale feels nothing but grief. Dimmesdale is very slowly fraying away from life because he is trapped in Chillingworth’s spell of revenge. Chillingworth will stop at nothing, until he finds out who his wife’s partner is. He will stop Dimmesdale’s passionate love for Hester and suck the life out of him, even if it is the last thing that he does.

I think that Dimmesdale endures the most suffering in this novel. When Dimmesdale saw Hester out on the scaffold the first day, I think that was the moment when he first felt grief. Dimmesdale and Hester knew that he was Pearl’s father, yet the rest of the community had no idea. Dimmesdale was too morally weak to admit to the public his sin, so he asked Hester to do it for him. She denied his request because she loved him and would not give up his identity. Because he was weak and Hester would not tell the public, Dimmesdale was forced to keep his secret in his soul. It was this that trapped him and brought him down. While he was holding onto this burden, Chillingworth was looking for a place to stay. The Reverend offers him his home, and here is when all the treachery begins. Like I said, Chillingworth was ready to stop at nothing, until he found out who his challenger was. So, he begins slowly, coming to the ailing clergyman’s needs. In chapter 9, titled The Leech, Chillingworth slowly starts sucking the life out of Dimmesdale by making complicated medicines, which he learned from the Indians. Apparently Dimmesdale is taking in these medicines, which make him gloomy and sick. Even the parishioners notice, at the Sunday Vigil, that the Reverend is pale and awkwardly thinning down. This is not only from the medicines; it is from the guilt that is growing inside of him. As the days go by, Dimmesdale discusses the secrets of his soul with Chillingworth, whom enjoys every bit of it. Chillingworth now has an even better chance at making Dimmesdale miserable, because he can see inside of his soul and pick at his weaknesses.

Roger Chillingworth eventually becomes obsessed with searching inside Dimmesdale’s heart. In Chapter 10, titled The Leech and His Patient, Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are talking in the study room. Outside the window, they hear Pearl and Hester talking in the graveyard. Dimmesdale then says how he agrees with Roger about Hester’s public display on the scaffold. He says that she is better off with her sin publicly announced, rather than holding it inside of herself. Those few words just told the reader, and Chillingworth,