By denying the passion that the heart naturally releases and suppressing feelings, actions, and thoughts in fear of social rule, these characters fall. If an emotion is deliberately conformed from the truth in order to hide an imperfection, by that action, it will not be fully conveyed. Leaving out the truth creates a margin of error in communication. No matter how meager in size that margin is, it creates gaps which can later become canyons. These canyons carry affect to all that try to cross, a lie can wound anyone whether they are involved directly or simply watching.

Roger Chillingworth begins a chain of self-denying which soon travels to the other characters. He is an old and lonely scholar in England dehumanized by a life of abstruse studying. He makes the mistake of marrying a young wife. He sends his wife to America, to

the Puritan colony of Massachusetts, with instructions to live quietly until he arrives. Due to "grievous mishaps by sea and land," and over a year's captivity by Indians, his intended arrival was delayed. He finally arrives to discover his wife, Hester Prynne, being publicly exposed as an adulteress. Not wanting to be associated with her sin, he announces himself as a physician, and takes the new name Roger Chillingworth from the original Roger Prynne.

In this matter of crime, as soon as he became involved, he appeared before himself no longer a clergyman, but a man--a human being. He answered society in the cowardly way. He answered himself in that way, which every soul adopts, where crime does not penetrate. The physical facts of crime alone, with which society has to do, in reality constitutes sin. Crimes are committed under protest of the soul, more or less decided, as the weary soul itself has been more or less besieged and broken

He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at the full height of his voice, and tell the people what he was. 'I, whom you behold in these black garments of the priesthood... I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie!'

When Hester finally tells Dimmesdale about Chillingworth's true identity, it is at this point that, Hawthorne portrays, through Dimmesdale's words, that Chillingworth has committed the most severe of the sins in the novel: Violating the sanctity of the human heart. This new knowledge does not free Dimmesdale of Chillingworth's control. It is not until Dimmesdale's confession to the town that he escapes the control of Chillingworth. Although Dimmesdale had gained back control, it was too late for him to gain back his health.

Hester, because she lived in Puritan times where sin is not so easily accepted, has been isolated, separated from the community. She was able to leave whenever she wanted, but from this quote, Hawthorne tells us that she does not leave because she is feeling guilty,

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Approximate Word count = 1465
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)