The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne - 1238 Words

People often keep secrets in an effort to hide their sins from others. This is a risky since secrets have a way of manifesting themselves externally, and thus, letting everyone know of their owner’s sins. Hidden sin is a prominent theme in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Scarlet Letter. Names like Chillingworth and Dimmesdale let the reader know how, in reality, these characters are, before ever really encountering them. Characters whom the reader will encounter in this novel are going through some type of dilemma on the inside, which begins to show itself in the exterior of the particular individual. In The Scarlet Letter, two studious individuals, Roger Chillingworth and Arthur Dimmesdale, two of the main characters in the novel, each†¦show more content†¦After he begins his quest the townspeople observe something ugly and evil in his face which they had not previously noticed, and which grew still the more obvious to sight, the oftener they looked upon him.â₠¬  Soon his wife, Hester, finds the former aspect of an intellectual and studious man, calm and quiet, which was what she best remembered in him, had altogether vanished and been succeeded by an eager searching, almost fierce, yet carefully guarded look. Chillingworth, the injured husband, seeks no revenge against Hester, but he is determined to find the man who has violated his marrige: â€Å"He bears no letter of infamy wrought into his garment, and thou dost; but I shall read it on his heart.† Chillingworth comments: â€Å"Believe me, Hester, there are few things... few things hidden from the man who devotes himself earnestly and unreservedly to the solution of a mystery.† Thus, Chillingworth intends to seek the father at any cost. The reader finds out that cost winds up to be his own life, through the attachment that he has made to trying to bring down Reverend Dimmesdale, the father of the child whose name is Pearl. It is quite apparent that his external features have changes during this whole procedure of finding out the identity of Dimmesdale: â€Å"a change had come over his features...how much uglier they were...how his dark complexion seemed to have grown duskier, and