Chillingworth

Based on chapters fourteen and fifteen, I formulated the following question that the work is exploring: What are Hester’s contrasting attitudes toward Chillingworth based on chapter fourteen and fifteen? During chapter fourteen, Hester sees Chillingworth and sends Pearl down to play by the seashore while she speaks with her husband. She is surprised at the changes in Chillingworth just as she was shocked by Dimmesdale's spiritual ailment and aging. Realizing Chillingworth is becoming more like the devil, she feels responsible for "another ruin." According to Hester, her promise has caused Chillingworth to do evil to the minister, but Chillingworth denies his role at first. Then he admits that, although he used to be kind, gentle, and affectionate, he now allows evil to use him. The physician believes it his fate to become a fiend. He releases Hester from her promise of silence. Nevertheless, Hester pities Chillingworth. Despite her pity for Chillingworth in chapter fourteen, Hester reveals her deep hatred for him in chapter fifteen. She realizes that he set off a chain of events beginning with an unnatural, loveless marriage. "Be it sin or no, I hate the man!" is her final word on the subject. We hear for the first time her thoughts about her marriage to Chillingworth. He spent long hours among his books, emerging to "bask himself in [her] . . . smile." While she used to think of this domestic scene as happy long ago, she now sees how dismal it was and counts it among "her ugliest remembrances."