Scarlet Letter Revenge Quotes

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“He has been conscious of me. He has felt an influence dwelling always upon him like a curse. He knew, by some spiritual sense,- for the Creator never made another being so sensitive at this,- he knew that no friendly hand was pulling at his heart-strings, and that an eye was curiously into him, which sought only evil, and found it. But he knew not that the eye and hand were mine!.. But it was the constant shadow of my presence!- the closest propinquity of the man he had most vilely wronged- and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge!” (Chillingworth 131-132)
In this quote Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Chillingworth to portray how obsession over vengeance can lead to the extermination of the soul, and leave only a shell of the former person. In the book, The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne commits the
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It is evident because she whimpers back at the simple touch Chillingworth places upon the scarlet letter. (←This is less than valid evidence of her becoming damaged because it occurs at the beginning of the story.) Chillingworth wishes Hester and Dimmesdale good health so he can get the chance to have vengeance. His mental status is so afflicted that he is wishing good health just so he can bring forth pain.
“...there was a fiend at his elbow, with once a human heart, has a become a fiend for his especial torment.” (167) Chillingworth no longer has a human heart in terms of being humane. His sick obsession has eaten away and left behind a demented Chillingworth. Because Hawthorne uses darkening of life by secrets and obsession of vengeance kills the soul, he was able to portray the damaging effects they both have on a person. Secrets can darken and make life glum. Vengeance kills the soul if one obsesses over it. The excessive worry over one idea leads to the damage of a person. Hawthorne clearly stated these ideas throughout the novel The Scarlet