The Scarlet Letter is an American gothic novel written in the 1850’s by Nathaniel Hawthorne in which Hester Prynne is forced to wear a scarlet letter upon her breast as a lesson to the town because she was caught in the act of adultery, later we find out her old husband Roger Chillingworth, the town physician, has found who her fellow adulterer is and begins to secretly torture the man as an act of revenge. Another American gothic novel with an evil character is Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville in 1851, and the evil character is Captain Ahab, who is after the white whale who ate his leg, Moby Dick. Roger Chillingworth and Captain Ahab are both evil characters on a mission to get revenge for something they lost and in the process, they…show more content… When he first gets on the ship he hears rumors about Ahab, but he never sees him. It is not until a couple of weeks after being out at sea that Ahab appears and he gives a speech about Moby Dick and the crew being absolutely devoted to killing Moby Dick. He tells his crew about how Moby Dick ate his leg and killed his whole crew except for him and he wants revenge for himself and to avenge his crew, in the beginning of the story this seems like a very noble cause but it seems less like one as the story progresses. Ahab takes the crew into some extremely dangerous places even by whaling ship standards like Antarctica and through the middle of a storm that could have killed them all. He is warned multiple times by his first mate, Starbuck, that the crew could die, but Ahab ignores him and tells him to leave him alone and at one time Ahab thinks Starbuck is threatening mutiny and in return Starbuck said, “Do not let Ahab fear Starbuck, let Ahab fear Ahab”. Ahab is also warned that by taking his crew on this dangerous mission, he will be sentenced to eternity in Hell for taking his crew on this dangerous mission and refusing to help any of the other sailors; Starbuck and Queequeg are of the opinion though that they are already in
