217;s original signification. They said that it meant ‘Able’; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a women’s strength” (The Scarlet Letter).Dimmesdale has the hardest time with his sin because he does not admit it to everyone. It haunts him every day when he sees Pearl and Hester. He lies about it in order to seem holy in the eyes of the congregation. He is very weak and unable to speak the truth, although he pleads for Hester to speak for him when he says, “…I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer! Be not silent from any mistaken pity and tenderness for him; for, believe me, Hester, though he were to step down from a high place, and stand there beside thee, on they pedestal of shame, yet better it were so, than to hide a guilty heart through life” (63). She could not speak, and neither could he. Through the seven years that he kept his sin a secret, he grew very ill and they knew it was more of an illness to the soul then to the body. He tortured himself by whipping his own back. Every day he went up the stairs to give a sermon, he would try to speak of his sin, but everyday he walked backed down those stairs without doing it. He cannot justify his sin, even on the grounds of his love for Hester. Finally he admits his guilt, right before he dies on the scaffold. Chillingworth is the worst sinner of all because he violates the sanctity of the human heart. He pretends to be Dimmesdale’s friend while he is actually probing his heart. Although at the beginning he is a good, kind, intelligent man, his real personality is engulfed by the revenge he wants for Dimmesdale. He holds no grudge against Hester or Pearl, but he wants to ruin Dimmesdale’s life by torturing him with the sin he is hiding. Demented by his thoughts of revenge and hate, Chillingworth is shown to be a devil by not being truthful to himself and others. Finally, for all th...
