reats him as a symbol for evil in The Scarlet Letter. Because he is unable to win Hester's love for himself, Chillingworth is filled with hatred when he realizes that Dimmesdale has succeeded where he has failed. This acknowledgement drives Chillingworth to become the very personification of evil. Thus, "like envious Satan, observing the love of Adam and Eve in the Garden, 'Imparadised in one another's arms,' he was 'stirred up with envy and revenge"' (Abel 209). Instead of assimilating his anger and getting on with his life, Chillingworth allows his desire for revenge to become a sinful obsession. It is clear that Chillingworth could have chosen to accept the changes that had taken place in his marriage. He could have reclaimed Hester or simply moved on to a new way of life. Instead of following a more reasonable course, however, Chillingworth allows himself to develop a "diabolical possession" which "became a fatal sin when he nourished it, like Blake's Poison Tree, and made it the settled disposition of his existence" (Abel 209).
Throughout the novel, Chillingworth is described as being the embodiment of sin and evil. In fact, it has been noted that "from his first appearance Roger Chillingworth is described in demonic terms" (Hoffman 348). When he first comes to town and sees Hester standing on the scaffold, Chillingworth is pictured as being a slightly deformed man, with one shoulder higher than the other. Immediately, Hawthorne points out that Chillingworth's inherently sinful nature is connected to his deep-rooted selfishness. Thus, Chillingworth is described as looking at Hester "like a man chiefly accustomed to look inward, and to whom external matters are of little value and import, unless they bear relation to something within his mind" (Hawthorne 44). In this way, it is indicated that Chillingworth's sin is due in part to the fact that he is incapable of truly caring about his fellow human beings. In fac
...