"Thou hast escaped me!" [Chillingworth] repeated more than once. "Thou hast escaped me!"
"May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" (23.28-29)
By now, the whole "I'm gonna get you" shtick that Chillingworth has been playing with for the last seven years seems to be less about exactly a well-deserved revenge than about playing some sort of sick cat-and-mouse game. Check out the word "escaped": Dimmesdale is going to expose his sin and die, but that's still not enough. The revenge has to be personal.
Quote 2
"What evil have I done the man?" asked Roger Chillingworth again. (14.16)
Uh, well, you've tortured him into a living death? Chillingworth raises an important question, though—not "what evil have I done the man?" but "Who gets to decide what counts as sin?" Chillingworth doesn't think he's done anything wrong, but Dimmesdale has a different opinion: he sees Chillingworth's sin as way worse than his or Hester's.
"Thou hast escaped me!" [Chillingworth] repeated more than once. "Thou hast escaped me!"
"May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!" (23.28-29)
After Dimmesdale dies, we don't see what happens to Chillingworth. But we do get the feeling that, eventually, he realizes that he's done some bad things. Giving his fortune to Pearl feels a lot like an apology and a confession. Maybe there's hope for him after all.
"Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret,—no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,—save on this very scaffold!" (23.18)
Dimmesdale finds forgiveness, though not from Chillingworth. Chillingworth admits that Dimmesdale has escaped his revenge. Is Chillingworth capable of forgiveness at this point?
"Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret, —no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,--save on this very scaffold!" (23.18)
The only place for Dimmesdale to escape Chillingworth is in public. Ironic, right? Hiding out, escaping to England, living in the forest—anywhere he tried to hide, Chillingworth would find him. But the moment he casts off his hypocrisy, he's free.
Quote 6
As he spoke, he laid his long forefinger on the scarlet letter, which forwith seemed to scortch into Hester’s breast, as if it had been red-hot. He noticed her involuntary gesture, and smiled. “Live, therefore, and bear about thy doom with thee, in the eyes of men and women—in the eyes of him thou didst call thy husband—in the eyes of yonder child! And, that thou mayst live, take off this draught.” (4.13)
Does Chillingworth remind anybody else of the evil Queen in Snow White or of Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove? The interesting thing is that instead of killing people, Chillingworth keeps them alive. He wants Hester and Dimmesdale to be as healthy as can be so they can feel their punishment and the judgment of others as fully as possible. Even though he’s constantly being called the Devil in this story, Chillingworth is all about life and health.
Quote 7
"With the superstition common to his brotherhood, he fancied himself given over to a fiend, to be tortured with frightful dreams, and desperate thoughts, the sting of remorse, and despair of pardon; as a foretaste of what awaits him beyond the grave. But it was the constant shadow of my presence!—the closest propinquity of the man whom he had most vilely wronged!--and who had grown to exist only by this perpetual poison of the direst revenge! Yea, indeed!—he did not err!—there was a fiend at his elbow! A mortal man, with once a human heart, has become a fiend for his especial torment!" (14.18)
Who needs the devil when you've got a friend like Chillingworth to take care of all your penance needs? This also raises a question: if you don't think that something is a sin, do you still need to be punished for it?
Quote 8
Calm, gentle, passionless, as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man, which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. To make himself the one trusted friend, to whom should be confided all the fear, the remorse, the agony, the ineffectual repentance, the backward rush of sinful thoughts, expelled in vain! All that guilty sorrow, hidden from the world, whose great heart would have pitied and forgiven, to be revealed to him, the Pitiless, to him, the Unforgiving! All that dark treasure to be lavished on the very man, to whom nothing else could so adequately pay the debt of vengeance! (11.1)
Anyone else get goosebumps? Look at the way guilt is described: as a "dark treasure" to be "lavished" on someone. If you ask us, that's a little sick.
"Hadst thou sought the whole earth over," said he, looking darkly at the clergyman, "there was no one place so secret,—no high place nor lowly place, where thou couldst have escaped me,—save on this very scaffold!" (23.18)
Chillingworth was paying enough attention in church to hear the part about not cheating on your husband, but he evidently snoozed through the follow up: "judge not, lest ye be judged." Oops.
Quote 10
"It was my folly! I have said it. But up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one!" (4.18)
Aw. We could almost feel sorry for poor, lonely Chillingworth—except that he's about to prove himself a psycho-stalker.
Quote 11
“Here on this wild outskirt of earth, I shall pitch my tent; for, elsewhere a wanderer, and isolated from human interests, I find here a woman, a man, a child, amongst whom and myself there exist the closest ligaments.” (4.26)
Chillingworth and Hester do have some things in common, after all. Both hold a secret. Both are unhappy. Both have a very desirable skill (Chillingworth is a doctor and Hester is an amazing sewer). And both live on the outskirts of this Puritan society. You'd think they'd have a happier marriage.
Quote 12
“Peace, Hester, peace!” replied the old man, with gloomy sternness. “It is not granted me to pardon. I have no such power as though tallest me of. (…) Ye that have wronged me are not sinful, save in a kind of typical illusion; neither am I fiendlike, who have snatched a fiend’s office from his hands. It is our fate. Let the black flower blossom as it may. Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man.” (14.32)
Okay, since the evil Chillingworth obviously thinks that he and everyone else are ruled by fate, we're going to go out on a limb and say that Hawthorne is coming down on the side of free will. He totally does have control of his actions.