In chapter ten of The Scarlet Letter,
Hawthorne depicts Chillingworth as anything but the kindly doctor so many in the town
once considered him. Instead, he uses a series of metaphors to describe the actions of
the leech on his patient. In the beginning, Chillingworth saw himself as a judge,
desiring simply to find and know the truth. He saw it as some sort of mathematical
puzzle or equation which could be solved if the correct figures were in place. Soon,
though, the metaphors change to something much more insidious and
invasive:
But, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination, a
kind of fierce, though still calm, necessity seized the old man within its grip, and
never set him free again, until he had done all its bidding. 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.
As a miner
digging for gold, he would be persistent and motivated and, to a large degree, greedy to
find what he most coveted--gold. Or, in this case, the truth about the sickness of his
patient's heart. As a sexton (a grave-digger), he was also digging, hoping to uncover a
body so as to steal, perhaps, any valuable jewelry--again out of greed. Both metaphors
show the change which has occured in this kindly physician and his single-minded desire
to get to the root of Dimmesdale's inner sickness.
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