The Scarlet Letter, By Nathaniel Hawthorne

In a surface examination of the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, it is quickly evident that no good things come from the wilderness. Therein, the wilderness is often associated with the savages and the devil. In his work The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne finds herself exiled by society for having an adulterous affair with the town reverend which brought forth the child known as Pearl. Pearl is quickly established as the child of the wilderness: wild, capricious, and thought by the town to be a demon-child. She represents several entities in the novel just by her being, but when her morality is delved into, much more of the nature of the story can be revealed. Pearl’s role is often overlooked as a formative force in the novel. Some scholars have gone as far as to denounce her as unnecessary to the story’s makeup. Upon close examination, it can be determined that Pearl is indeed a necessary element. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl presents themes of morality, both personal and cultural, as well as the divide between society and nature, through her interactions with Hester, Reverend Dimmesdale, and the scarlet letter itself.

The children In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter play a major role in the Puritan society. With their honest opinions of Hester and Pearl, the children are presented as more perceptive and more honest than adults. Due to their innocence, children are capable of expressing themselves without constraints; there are no laws or regulations that they are bounded by. As an adolescent go through the stages of life and grow older, they begin to be more conscious of the how they act as they are more aware of society and the things that are occurring in the world, creating a filter for their actions. When they remain as the children, on the other hand, are adventurous; they are still exploring the universe that seems to fill with mysteries that are bound to be solved. They tend to attach to the truth and they are not afraid to speak it freely. Children differ from adults in their potential for expressing these perceptions. With their obliviousness to the things that are actually going on around the town, children therefore react differently compared to the adults, who are more knowledgeable. Perceived to be immature, young children are presented as more perceptive and more honest than adults due to their innocence, how they are unaware of the reality and the crimes that are presented in society by the adults enables them to be blithe and not afraid of saying what they feel like. Due to their naivety, when they express what they perceive to be true, they do not get punished,

While Pearl plays in the forest the sunlight seems to find her no matter where

To start the book, we find that a young woman has committed adultery and when standing in front of a mocking crowd, she is ashamed of her actions. Continuing through the book we find that the adulteress, Hester Prynne, displays many examples of positive outcomes arising from negative situations. She becomes more and more aware of the faults of society and becomes wiser as she deals with the consequences of her actions. Even though Hester made a terrible decision that came with many extremely negative effects, she gained personality traits, perceptions, and people that rose from her mistake.

From the first two lines of the poem, “Of all the souls that stand create—I have elected—One”, it can be inferred that of all the children in the New World, Pearl was the one elected to be the product of an adulteress. The next line of the poem, “When sense from spirit—flies away”, is describing how as Pearl grew older, she learned even more how to deny social standards and follow her own free spirit. The fourth line of the poem, “And Subterfuge—is done”, focuses on how the people of the New World probably stopped thinking of Pearl as a tricky and

Ever since her birth, Pearl’s behavior has been a bit “off” relative to the normal Puritan standard. A typical Puritan child would not “play” as a present day child would. They would mature quickly to help with various chores and other duties that had to be done. Pearl, however, was different. She was described on multiple occasions as being “wild” as she truly explored her freedom, and let her imagination work freely. This is prevalent where Hawthorne writes about Pearl that, “At home, within and around her mother’s cottage, Pearl wanted not a wide and various circle of acquaintance. The spell of life went forth from her ever creative spirit, and communicated itself to a thousand objects, as a torch kindles a flame wherever it may be applied.”

Hawthorne uses allusion throughout the novel to describe the symbolism in various different objects. He writes, “But did your reverence hear of the portent that was seen last night?-a great red letter in the sky-the letter ‘A’ which we interpret to stand for ‘Angel’”. (Hawthorne 135). This is allusion because it is referring to an angel. The A in the sky though is interpreted in many different ways.

The Buddha once said, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” The romantic novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the importance of the truth and the effects on an individual when they attempt to escape from it. This novel mostly follows the main character Hester, who is doomed to display the scarlet letter, signifying adultery, for the rest of the duration of her life. Pearl, Hester’s daughter and the result of her adultery, is thought of by the Puritan community to be unworldly, wild, and an offspring of Satan. However, despite the Puritans’ ill view on her, Hawthorne purposely uses her character to portray truth and nature in this gloomy and dark setting. The actions of Pearl make it apparent that one cannot hide or escape from the truth.

“I was already missing before the night I left, just me and my shadows and all of my regrets. Who am I? Who am I when I don’t know myself?” Pearl is used as symbolism throughout the entire story. Pearl is the physical representation of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale’s sin.

believes that Pearl’s purpose on earth is to torture her but also to be her light and joy in a town

Pearl is wild, beautiful, smart, and has that natural beauty to her way past her appearance -which the Puritan system hates. Hester knew that all of Pearl’s emotions came straight from Hester’s own heart. As it is explained in the chapter “enmity and passion Pearl inherited, by inalienable right, out of Hester’s heart” While Hester is quiet and submissive to the townspeople in a public mien. Something that the reader might not perceive is that Hester dressses Pearl as the Scarlet Letter she wears on her bosom.

The narrator’s feelings of inferiority and powerlessness parallels the female figure she sees trapped behind the pattern in the wall-paper adorning her room. She gradually withdraws from both John and reality by locking herself in the room and ultimately merging with the figure. Through the changing image of the pattern from a “fait figure” (Gilman 46) to a “woman stooping” (Gilman 46) behind the paper and “shaking the bars” (Gilman 46) as if she wanted “to get out” (Gilman 46), we can see her becoming one with the figure: “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”(51) Her collapse into madness as reflected in her behavior with the “bedstead [that] is fairly gnawed” (Gilman 51) and her “creeping all around” (Gilman 50) is a direct result of her passive submissiveness to John’s control of her life.

The rose and the sun are the main aspects of the graphic. The stem of the rose has many thorns poking out of the rose, which portrays the imagery of all of the lies Abigail Williams tells throughout the play. The lies that are created throughout the play shows that what others say aren’t always in the best interest of helping people. Also, the sun in the background with the dark clouds coming out of the flower symbolizes the mass hysteria that Abigail Williams creates by her actions. The mass hysteria is created throughout the play is continued by people believing anything

The natural fixtures of the forest, specifically the brook, reflect the internal disposition of Pearl anent nature. While Hester, Pearls mother, and Dimmesdale are in the forest, Hester looks over to see her daughter reflected in the brook,

In the ninth through eighteenth chapters of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, many things are established. The characters in the novel are beginning to be fully characterized, Pearl is described as “elvish” and to have an “elf-smile in her eyes” and at such a young age Pearl displays a supernatural intelligence that most three year-old’s do not possess. Pearl is a living example representing the sin of adultery that Hester Prynne, her mother, has committed, which connects to the theme. Pearl is very much alike her mother Hester, because of their captivating beauty. Another character development is the evolution of Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale’s illness. Dimmesdale becomes extremely ill, and he punishes himself because of the sin he committed which was also adultery, with Hester Prynne. Dimmesdale slowly begins to attempt to reveal his sinfulness through his sermons, but this leads his congregation to believe he is very holy and could never be a sinful being. Hawthorne uses dramatic irony, through this situation because the reader knows who the father of Pearl is and that Dimmesdale committed adultery, but the people of the