vengeance – Vengeance is defined in this narrative as the exaction of just punishment for actions done to a person or to a person that is in some way connected with one’s self.  In the narrative we learn that Frost was harmed in some way either to himself or to his mother by both of the father figures that he killed.  His acting out against those actions taken against him is defined as vengeance.  The word comes with skewed meaning for everyone who is involved.  For some vengeance goes as far as tipping off the authorities to the offender, but for others like Frost vengeance is more personal and must be wrought with the victim’s own hands. 

sympathy – Taking pity on someone who has been wronged, injured, or hurt in some way whether it be physical or mental.  Frost showed sympathy for his victims while he was in jail.  Many would claim that his beating his head against the wall in a claim to feel what his victims felt made him crazy and insane.  I feel that this was an act of sympathy on the part of Frost.  He knew that it was wrong to kill those men, but their actions against him and his mother proved too much for him to handle and he had to get his revenge.   His actions turned out to go just a little bit too far in our standards of revenge and he was penalized for them.  But his desire to know or at least relate to the pain that his victims suffered shows sympathy and conscience, which in my mind saves him from being insane.

2. enmity – Throughout much of the conversation that Mather conducts with those soon to be “…before GOd the Judge of all,” he begins to pick apart the foundation of their criminality, trying to discern when or how their comportment became fraught with such ill will. Mather suggests that they have always carried the burden of wickedness and must open their souls and embrace Christ as their savior before eternal sentencing. He believes that these criminals have been cursed with this adamantine condition.

3. Help – “Your crime lay in Blood; and your Help also, That lies in Blood.” This statement made by Mather to Hugh Stone is the ministers final attempt to convince Hugh the only option is to accept Jesus Christ. Mather very plainly states that there is nothing else that can correct the ruinous nature of his earthly existence.