The Scarlet Letter :: English Literature

The Scarlet LetterIn most books, readers see events and happenings in their own personalway, which differs slightly from other readers interpretations of thesame book. In The Scarlet Letter, however, a radical new surmisal hasdeveloped on the death of Arthur Dimmesdale. Originally, it wasgenerally accepted that Chillingworths part in the death ofDimmesdale was purely psychological, but perhaps he played a greaterrole than thought before.In the book, Chillingworth is a physician who had been captured by Native Americans sometime ago and subsequently released by them into Boston, Massachusetts, who was strictly a Puritan settlement at the time. In the years of his imprisonment by the Indians, he was taught many native herbs and plants of the New World, and their uses on the human body. done this, he entered Boston as a physician, known to have pull together herbs, and the blossoms of wild-flowers, and dug up roots, and plucked off twigs from the forest-trees, like one inform with hidden virtues in what was valueless to common eyes. ( The Scarlet Letter , p. 120). Chillingworth had the noesis of a particular drug, Atropine, which caused a sickness that closely resembled the condition of Dimmesdale. Chillingworths pauperism for retribution to Dimmesdale for his adultery was very clear throughout the book, There is a sympathy that will make me conscious of him. I shall see him tremble. I shall feel myself shudder, fastly and unawares. Sooner or later, he must require be mine. (p. 80). Chillingworths vengeful nature consumed his life and his only goal in life became the torment of Hesters adulterous husband, Dimmesdale. He was already showing signs of sickness, presume by the reader to be attributed to his guilty conscience, and these were only amplified by the poisoning Chillingworth had inflicted upon him.Dimmesdales physical state and reactions also gave the reader clues to Chillingworths role in Dimmesdales demise. Upon Chillingworths comer to Boston, Dimmesdale immediately showed symptoms of atropine poisoning, or, to the reader at the time, signs of his guilt and adultery. As the doctor-patient relationship amidst Chillingworth and Dimmesdale grew, Dimmesdales health faded. His form grew emaciated his voice, though still rich and sweet, had a certain melancholy prophecy of decay in it he was ofttimes observed, on any slight alarm or other sudden accident, to put his hand over his heart with first a flush and then a paleness, indicative of pain. (p. 119). Also, as time progressed, Dimmesdales symptoms became more desolate and resembled like those attributed to atropine poisoning.