Nathaniel Hawthorne did a splendid job with symbolism throughout The Scarlet Letter. Everything in the story was a shrewdly placed symbol of something deeper. This was even true of the characters. I believe this is true of Roger Chillingworth. It is hard to think of Chillingworth as a character at all. He had little depth; we knew little of him besides his self-consuming desire to find and torment Hester’s associate in sin.
As soon as Chillingworth is introduced to the audience, it is apparent that he is a frightening, sinister character. The book describes him as, “clad, in
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