The Black Man with a Flaming Soul Everyone has felt a sense of revenge at some point in his or her lifetime. Many may choose to take drastic measures, but those who choose to move on are the definitive group whom possess a superior quality. Throughout the novel The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Chillingworth possesses feelings of vengeance; yet throughout the novel those feelings never subside. Later his obsession with revenge causes his good soul to withdraw and allow an evil to emerge. In the beginning of the novel, Hawthorne provides a description of Chillingworth’s past life that allows us to understand Chillingworth’s superior qualities. Before Chillingworth moved to the New World, he lived in Europe with his wife Hester. Chillingworth was a man with “intellectual gifts” and a physician whom helped those who were sickly (Hawthorne, 60). After they married, Chillingworth sends Hester to a puritan village in Massachusetts. Chillingworth was gone for so long that Hester and the townspeople assumed he had perished at sea on his way over to the Massachusetts colony. For this reason, Hester moved on with her life after thinking that her husband was not going to return to her. When Chillingworth finally did return, however, he saw Hester on the scaffold being reprimanded for her adultery, which later marked the beginning of Chillingworth’s hunt for revenge. Chillingworth is described towards the beginning of the novel as someone who is physically deformed. Though