Revenge

Anytime someone hurts you, makes fun of you, or affects you in a way you do not like, what is the first thing that pops into your head? For most, it's something along the lines of, "I'm going to get you back for this!"  This is revenge, to retaliate back at someone.  Sometimes, getting revenge is acceptable, such as when friends pulling practical jokes on each other.  For example, Amir and Streeter from collegehumor.com engage in a prank war with each other.  After Streeter pulled a prank on Amir, Amir decided to get his revenge by pulling a practical joke on him.  After Streeter got pranked by Amir, Streeter decided to then get his revenge and pull a prank on Amir.  And so, they constantly continue to be in a prank war with each other, all because of their desire to get revenge on the other.  However, in the case of Robert Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, revenge takes on an extreme evil turn.

After sending his wife to America, Robert Chillingworth was slow to follow suit and arrived in America much later than planned.  Unfortunately for him, he saw, upon his arrival, the site of his wife being displayed on a scaffold as an adulterer.  At this site he becomes filled with anger and feels the need for revenge.  This revenge soon consumes his very being, and it turns him into a very evil man who, in fact, mainly symbolizes the devil throughout the novel.  This is a case in which revenge is very bad.  Although revenge is a part of human nature and can make one feel good about himself, it is not okay to get revenge in such an evil way.  Instead doing something harmless such as pulling a prank on someone, Chillingworth wishes to find his wife's accomplice and ruin his life.  In this case, it would have been better for everyone to let go of their anger and move on.  If Chillingworth had done so, he would have not transformed into the evil figure he becomes in the novel and could have started a better and new life for himself.