Scarlet Letter 22

“Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth, at that moment of his ecstasy, he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when a precious human soul is lost to heaven, and won into his kingdom.”

The sin didn’t affect only Hester, Dimmesdale and Pearl. Roger Chillingworth undergoes it too. For all his life, when he was Mister Pryne, he was a good man, “calm in temperament, kindly, though not of warm affections, but ever, and in all his relations with the world, a pure and upright man”. Now that he is Roger Chillingworth and all his life is based on the revenge, he is compared to Satan, and his evil makes him worse than the sinners themselves.

Scarlet Letter 21

"No, not to thee!  not to an earthly physician!" cried Mr. Dimmesdale, passionately, and turning his eyes, full and bright, and with a kind of fierceness, on old Roger Chillingworth. "Not to thee! But, if it be the soul's disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul! He, if it stand with His good pleasure, can cure, or he can kill.

In that there are important meanings. First Dimmesdale demonstrates that he is keeping a secret and the reader can well imagine what secret is this. Second it highlighted the difference between earth and heaven, expecially between the business of the one or of the otherone. The doctros are part of the material life, they can help and cure the body of the people but they can’t cure the soul. Only God has the power to judge and cure the soul troubles.

Scarlet Letter 20

“He now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold; or, rather, like a sexton delving into a grave, possibly in quest of a jewel that had been buried on the dead man's bosom, but likely to find nothing save mortality and corruption.”

Chillingworth promised Hester that he would have found the other sinner, the father of the child. His researches make him think that this person can be Dimmesdale. So he approaches the minister and starts to analyze him. He completely scans the minister mind, memory-by-memory, feeling-by-feeling. In this investigation it really seems he is looking for gold, he is greed to know. But what is looking for isn’t gold. It is a fault, a terrible fault of a man and in the end he won’t receive anything good from this work.

Scarlet Letter 19

“He thus typified the constant introspection wherewith he tortured, but could not purify himself.”

Dimmesdale is the punishment of himself. Just because anyone knows his sin that doesn’t mean that he is unpunished.  Its this fact itself, that he (and Hester) is the only one to know his fault that punish it. Hester has admitted her fault, telling everyone her sin, but now she can find a little ransom. Dimmesdale, continues to “sin” carrying all his fault alone so hiding the truth, and surely he can’t find any ransom. His sin is his fault and his punishment, which is corroding him from inside.

Scarlet Letter 18

“The people knew not the power that moved them thus. They deemed the young clergyman a miracle of holiness.”

Dimmesdale is a sinner, like Hester, but the behavior of the people toward them is completely different. While the people know about the fault of the woman and punish her “every day”, they don’t know about Dimmesdale fault. The minister is continued to be consider a Saint. He is admired by everyone and took like a mode. That makes Dimmesdale madder of what he really is, making the weight of his sin heavier.

17

   “He was heard to speak of Sir Kenelm Digby and other famous men, whose scientific attainments were esteemed hardly less than supernatural, as having been his correspondents or associates.”

In the description of Roger Chillingworth the character is associated with Kenelm Digby, philosopher and alchemist. This linked is made to focalize on the strangeness of Chillingworth. Since his arrived in Boston this man is rounded by a mysteries atmosphere. Anyone in the city understands why after pilgrimage fro a so long time he decides to set right there. The way he conducts his work is queer too. He isn’t a common physician but he uses a lot of natural elements new for the other experts about the subject. But in the end anyone cares a lot about Chillingworth’d oddities because they need a doctor, especially sir Dimmesdale, and the man seems to be arrived in the right moment.

16

"God gave her into my keeping!" repeated Hester Prynne, raising her voice almost to a shriek. "I will not give her up! "

In this speech Hester defends her cause, the guard of her child, with a solemn tone. Here we can find two important elements. The first is the natural love that ties a mother with a daughter. Hester doesn’t like Pearl much, and sometimes she doesn’t understand her behave and disagree with her minds. But however she is her mother and, like all the mothers, she can’t imagine that her child is brought away from her. The second element is the appeal to the God’s providence. It’s God that gave her the child to punish her but at the same time, like her only joy. They can’t take away Pearl from her because they can’t go against God voluntary.