RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The medical palimpsest of <em>The Scarlet Letter</em>: an interdisciplinary reading
JF Medical Humanities
JO J Med Humanit
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 17
OP 22
DO 10.1136/jmh.2004.000184
VO 31
IS 1
A1 J Dolezal
YR 2005
UL http://mh.bmj.com/content/31/1/17.abstract
AB The multiple historical layers of Roger Chillingworth’s character have been overlooked in criticism of The Scarlet Letter. By considering the possible influence of Robert Browning’s dramatic poem Paracelsus (1835) on Hawthorne’s romance (1850), as well as the ways in which overtones of both herbalism and clinical medicine complicate Chillingworth’s character, one rediscovers Chillingworth as Hawthorne’s audience likely experienced him: as a fictional palimpsest bearing multiple inscriptions of medical history that reveal an interplay between integrity and corruption. Thus, an interdisciplinary reading of The Scarlet Letter challenges the conventional critical assessment of Chillingworth as a satanic or Faustian figure.