As his name suggests, Roger Chillingworth is a man deficient in human warmth. Although regarded as a well-learned doctor in the Puritan community behind closed doors he doesn't quite follow the Hippocratic code. In the Scarlet Letter Chillingworth represents the devil. Throughout the novel, there are many references and associations that confirm the fact that Chillingworth is representative of the ultimate evil.

Hawthorne sets Chillingworth up as the antithesis of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Chillingworth avidly sets out to ruin Dimmesdale. As the narrative voice says when referring to Chillingworth's discovery of the Dimmesdale's secret, "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!" (p. 160). The capitalization of the words "Pitiless" and "Unforgiving" show that Chillingworth is the devil. Symbolically, on another more obvious note, Chillingworth steals one of Dimmesdale's gloves...