The Scarlet Letter: a Story of Sinners - Book Report/Review Example

Some people believe Hester to be the guiltiest of the three as she not only committed a sin of the flesh but also defied moral and religious principles by concealing the name of her lover and protecting the sinner. To some Reverend, Dimmesdale is the greatest sinner as he continued to live a life of double standards and kept on preaching piety while concealing from the world his guilt. For me however, the greatest sinner, undoubtedly, is Roger Chillingworth. Hawthorne's characterization of Chillingworth is deliberate as he sets about painting him as a malevolent, cruel, deceiving, sadistic, and hard-hearted man driven only by a maddening desire to take revenge.

Therein, I believe, lies the greatest sin. Chillingworth sets about in his journey of revenge-driven not by any hatred of the sin but by an incomprehensible hatred of the sinners. In my opinion, Chillingworth is the personification of the puritan society that took upon itself to judge and punish the crimes of others. He is, not for one moment motivated to punish the sinners for the sin they committed on moral or religious grounds but simply for selfish purposes, all of them springing from his burning desire for vengeance.

Even his physical disfiguring seemed to correspond with the fire of hatred burning within his bosom. Hawthorne portrays him to be a calculated schemer. His revenge is practiced with such cold, morbid cruelty and heartlessness that he ends up becoming the most unsavory character of the novel. His own words uttered at different episodes in the book serve to prove my point. For instance, speaking to Hester about Dimmesdale's predicament he said, "A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!" (p155). At another point, the reader gets a glimpse of his cold-blooded nature when he refuses to unmask Dimmesdale and admits his own morbid enjoyment of the torment he is inflicting on the Reverend by saying, "Think not that I shall, to my own loss, betray him to the gripe of human law" (p68).

It cannot be denied that a few critics believe Dimmesdale to be the guiltiest character in the novel. Dimmesdale was made a pious character not to show a character's weakness and to paint him in the colors of a coward hiding behind the shadows of religion like a hypocrite but Hawthorne's main aim was to show that Dimmesdale's sin was not a sin at all. It was an act natural in itself and the denial of which was unnatural. It is my belief that Hawthorne saved Dimmesdale from being labeled the greatest sinner simply by making his inner self an epitome of love and purity and by only providing him with the negative characteristics of a man lacking grossly in courage and resolve.

Chillingworth, however, committed the biggest sin as it were not his actions that were reprehensible but it was the blackness of his soul that was blameworthy. He had, in the words of Dimmesdale, "violated, in cold blood, the sanctity of a human heart" (p178).Hawthorne could have, if he wanted, narrated his novel from the very beginning, thereby making it conform more to the prevalent and conventional techniques of novel-writing, but that he did not do, as his main preoccupation was with basic perceptions of sin.

His chief aim was to compare and contrast the sins of the flesh and the sins of the soul. By juxtaposing a sinner who has committed adultery to a sinner whose heart and soul are black, Hawthorne wished the readers to make the final decision on their own. He wanted the readers to look into their hearts and to ask themselves if the guilt of a sinner is measured by his actions or by the soul he hides inside himself.