Wednesday, October 19, 2011

-~- DIALECTICAL JOURNAL #12 -~-

"Nay, if your worship can accomplish that, I shall own you for a man of skill indeed!" ((Chapter 4/PAGE 66))

   The jailer says this to Roger Chillingworth before he leaves him alone with Hester to heal her. However, Roger is a man well-versed in the art of native medicine, alchemy, and regular medicine. All of these have thus no connection to religion other than 'healing powers', yet Roger's work is still far from worship as the jailer calls it. Because of this, the Puritan faith is not as perfect as it's made out to be, and lacks the healing and soothing of a medication to a sickness. 
Taking this into account, perhaps the jailer speaks sarcastically, and figures that if Roger can actually 'worship' the sickness out of her, he will be a remarked as a very skillful man for the religious actions of everything up to this point in the book have done nothing but hurt another person rather than heal.   

1 comment:

  1. Yes, I think you are correct here: the jailer is looking towards Roger as a skillful man for his "religious actions".

    ReplyDelete