The Scarlet Letter .. Chapter Twenty four - Conclusion .. Post #53

“Don’t you know,” cried the ship’s captain, “that this doctor here—he calls himself Chillingworth—has decided to try ship’s cooking along with you? Yeah, sure, you must have known. He tells me that he is a member of your party and a close friend of the gentleman you spoke of—the one that is in danger from these sour old Puritans.”


and 


"Even across the broad and busy square, through all the talk and laughter and various thoughts, moods, and interests of the crowd, that smile conveyed a secret and fearful meaning."


compared to 


"But what distinguished the physician's ecstasy from Satan's was the trait of wonder in it!" (Page 121, Chapter Nine)


Chillingworth changed during the book. He changed throughout his whole life. First, when he married Hester he was a normal person, studying books, trying to get more and more knowledge. Then he decided to take revenge and this revenge converted him into an evil man. He needed Dimmesdale to survive. First he was some kind of a substitute of Satan, until he finally changed into Satan. When he was described with the snake earlier in the book that was one of the first hints because Satan often gets described in the body of a snake. When he was wondering he was not totally evil yet, he still had some light in him but at the end of the book, he was not wondering anymore. All the light was gone, he turned into a devil. That is the reason he dies in the end. Would he have survived if there had been light somewhere hidden in him? Or would he have died anyways?