Monday, January 28, 2013
The focus of chapter 11 is fixed on Dimmesdale's sorrow as he suffers beneath the burden of guilt he seems too weak to confess. Hawthorne makes a statement of the methods and degree of how Dimmesdale is to carry out his own self-punishment. His sufferings and sins has made him more understanding towards the sins of others which indirectly affects the impact of his sermons to the congregation. Hawthorne creates a sense of sympathy in the reader for Dimmesdale and his suffering so that it does not blind them to the fact that the minister is a sinner whose troubles are greatly of his own flesh despite having taught against that. In addition the reader can see how Chillingworth is becoming more evil in this chapter. The revenge that he desires is coming at a higher price than he can understand right now. He is losing himself and becoming the personification of evil.
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I do agree on how you say this chapter is about the guilt overcoming Dimmesdale, the guilt is like holding in a secret you know you shouldn't be holding in the first place. And do you think that Chillingworths "Personification of evil" is his fault? And if this is the case, I wouldn't say that i'd blame him because Hester did betray him in a major way. Maybe Chillingworth is learning how to question and be suspicious more, after what he came home to have to deal with, with the whole Hester situation.
ReplyDeleteI think that Chillingworth ruined himself. He started off as a lie, under the guise of the name Roger Chillingworth for fear of his true identity as Hester's husband being revealed. This was only so he could entangle himself within the colony to find Hester's "partner in crime" so to speak. Making vengeance his one and only goal, that slowly consumed him.
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