Chillingworth of "The Scarlet Letter" is more pitiable than the Reverend Dimmesdale because he has not only sinned by seeking revenge, but he has totally succumbed to evil and embraced it while Dimmesdale, albeit a sinner, continues to fight to be a good man. His is still a life in the service of others, but Chillingworth's is solely a life of a "fiend" bent upon the possession of the secrets of another man's heart. In her interview with the physician, Hester accuses Chillingworth:
You search his thoughts. You burrow and rankle in his heart. Your clutch is on his life, and you cause him to die daily a living death....I [pity]thee...for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Wilt thou yet purge it out of thee, and be once more human?
Chillingworth has lost his humanity; Dimmesdale has not, and is able to stand before people and finally be redeemed through his confession of sin, while like the black flowers he picks, Chillingworth takes on a deformed shape and later fades into death with only a feeble attempt to redeem himself by leaving money for Pearl.
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