"All that we are is the result of what we have thought If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him." (Buddha) .
This is a perfect quote to explain what happened to Roger Chillingworth throughout the book "The Scarlet Letter". The more evilness he allowed to consume him, the more pain he felt with his body, mind and spirit. I believe Roger Chillingworth to be one of the most hated characters but also one of the most interesting characters in this book. Roger Chillingworth symbolizes the self-destructive power of revenge, as well as the natural evil found in every person. .
The biggest symbol of his malice is his physical deformity. We learn about this when Chillingworth is first introduced while Hester is standing on the scaffold. Hester allows us to get a clear, distinct, visual of what he looks like. He was small in stature and it was evident to Hester that one of this man's shoulders rose higher than the other. (Hawthorne 56). Here, Chillingworth is presented as an ugly man who is thin, small, and possessed of an odd "peculiarity." This seems to single him out from society, though he tries to hide it with his clothes. Where the normal person has an equal balance of good and evil inside them, Chillingworth's over-abundance of evil begins to take a physical being on his body. It seems like the further Chillingworth pushes his mind to revenge, the further the deformity consumes. For example, when Hester was being evaluated by Governor Billingham as to being fit to raise Pearl, Hester "was startled to perceive what a change had come over [Roger Chillingworth's] features, how much uglier they were, how dark his complexion seemed to have grown. and his figure more misshapen," (Hawthorne 103). Finally, towards the end of the book, Chillingworth is bent down so much that he is almost a hunchback.
