The Scarlett Letter : Transcendentalism

Pearl’s existence reminds Hester of her act of passion, which the cultural morality of Boston dictates as sinful. This is evident not only because Pearl is the product of Dimmesdale and Hester’s action, but because of who Pearl is at heart. Pearl’s personality is as stated,

     After her horrible ordeal, and her release from prison, Hester and Pearl reside for the next few years in a hut by the sea. Hester tries to keep her distance from the Puritans. She does not want them to influence Pearl. Hester wants to raise Pearl, and find peace within herself. Pearl, however,

““There was witchcraft in little Pearl’s eyes, and her face, as she glanced upward at the minister, wore that naughty smile which made its expression frequently so elvish.” (Hawthorne 145) This, is a misleading description that Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts of Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne, in his classic novel The Scarlet Letter. Pearl is the living product of sin for her mother. Born out of wedlock, Pearl is a unique child that tends to be very moody and unpredictable. However, Pearl, at such a young age, demonstrates outstanding knowledge and exhibits curiosity to her mother’s scarlet letter, and the hypocrisy of Puritan society. Although Pearl portrays devilish characteristics and performs mischievous behaviour, she

The Transcendentalist Movement of the early nineteenth century proved to be especially popular with American writers. Though many critics have associated authors such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson with this movement, many other American authors utilized themes of transcendentalism in their works. Likewise, although critics often do not portray Nathaniel Hawthorne as a transcendentalist, the multitude of characteristics central to those of the American Transcendentalist Movement suggest that Hawthorne was indeed a transcendentalist. In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne represents the Transcendentalist Movement by incorporating three major transcendentalist themes: self-reliance, the importance of nature, and the innocence of youth.

Throughout history, people encounter a stage in their lives where they feel the necessity to assert their independence and challenge their abilities and self-worth. In the book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, the author shares his understanding and kinship with the main character, Chris McCandless, a young man who thrusts himself into a life of solitude and a harsh environment during his search for meaning to his life. Krakauer depicts himself and McCandless as modern day transcendentalists with an abundance of competency, resourcefulness and skills as naturalists. Although McCandless chose to experience a life of solitude and face the hazards that nature presents, his lack of preparedness prevented him from completing his endeavor successfully.

In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne explores characters who rely on their instincts and characters who do not; meanwhile, he criticizes civilization for hindering people from following their natural thoughts. The novel takes place in a rigid Puritan town in which individual thought is absent. However, there is one character that contrasts starkly with the others: Pearl. Pearl is characterized as a wild, brilliant child with a mind of her own. Although she is not meant to be a realistic character, she serves to communicate many Romantic ideas. She’s smart - extremely smart - but not in the way the Chillingworth is smart in that he knows a lot from studying books. She just has an intuitive understanding of the truths of the world and the people around her. For example, she discerns Chillingworth’s true

Though Hester has been corrupted by her Puritan society as a result of her public mortification, her daughter, Pearl, continues to live freely and happily deep in the woods. By living off from the Colony, Pearl is able to be herself and not worry about the various restrictions society puts on individuals; unlike if she and her mother lived within the hussle-and-bussle of everyday an Puritan community. However, whenever they would go into town for various reasons “the children [would] gather about her… Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones, and flinging it at them… “ (Hawthorne 64). Obviously, when in the presence of the people that made up the warping society, Pearl would instantly have a different personality

In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne criticizes puritans due to the unusually harsh treatment of Hester Prynne. Through Hester Prynne’s punishment and redemption, Hawthorne questions transcendentalism and its components. Using juxtaposition of civilization and isolation, Hawthorne illustrates transcendentalism’s rejection of societal constraints and organized religion. He also juxtaposes light and dark to show a closeness with nature, another key element of transcendentalism, as well as conveying the overall meaning of his work, finding the truth through the admittance of one’s sins symbolized by light or sunshine. Hawthorne debates the presence of God within everyone due to the puritans behavior with his use of darkness,

Hester believes Pearl is an “elf” child and born of sin, yet she does not realize that it is natural for a young and isolated girl to be “odd.” Hester’s mind creates this idea because it is too blind to realize that Pearl is her own being and is growing in special conditions. This is a direct result of the minds

In the wilderness, Hester, Pearl, Huck, and Jim were respected and recognized as human beings compared to being in society. Hester respected Pearl and valued her as a person unlike the community with their views. The society saw Pearl as an elf-child who was not fit to live under Hester’s rule anymore and was dirtied with her mother’s sin. Hawthorne illustrates, “Without question, she is equally in the dark as to her soul, its present depravity, and future destiny! Me thinks, gentlemen, we need inquire no further “(Hawthorne 77). To the community, she was a product of sin and didn’t rate high in the Puritan society. She was disregarded and forced to live her mother’s sentence of solidarity in the middle of the wilderness alongside her

Pearl is often accused of being a witch child, but Hester tries her best not to believe it. Hester does her best to be there for her daughter, even when she was faced with her own burdens. Even though she’s been through so much in her, Hester gives out all her love whenever she can. That proves that she’s become a pure and loyal person.

Hester’s battle with herself can only be understood by taking a glimpse into her daily life with her beloved daughter, Pearl. Pearl is the physical manifestation of her sin, of the adultery that Hester committed with her secret lover; with every waking hour, Pearl is always alongside Hester, constantly reminding Hester of her transgression. Whenever Hester sees Pearl, she sees a young and energetic girl, who also possesses the same attributes that she loathes about herself, the difficult and wild side of herself that would never give up. Hawthorne writes that Pearl, “lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. [Pearl] could not be made amenable to rules” (Hawthorne

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

The Scarlet Letter, a book by Nathaniel Hawthorne, illustrates the character development of Pearl through the pervasive use of supernaturalism and the effects that had on her mental state. The supernatural is explained as the events in science or nature that are derived from external forces. The story takes place in mid seventeenth century in Massachusetts Bay Colony. This is consequential because Puritanism was the belief system that many people followed leading to an omnipresent fear of the supernatural. Due to her harsh upbringings “Pearl [grew] positively terrible in her puny wrath [which] made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue” (Hawthorne 141). The anxiety from the Puritan

These feminists aimed to defend their silenced voices. One motive for the dissent of inequality could have resulted from the strict government regulation of conformity. Everyone was trained to evade individualistic thinking, which in turn, led to the questioning of leaders. “It was an age in which the human intellect had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before,” (149). This quote illustrates the possibility of a change in people’s mind regarding the injustice towards women. Hester represents the story’s population that thinks freely. She is not content with fulfilling the pre-determined destiny of a silent wife under Christ, and demonstrates it by challenging that role and attempting to reorganize the archaic system in which she lives. The women of the town are outraged by her actions, demonstrating that they are afraid that if women start acting out of passion, the entire structure they depend on would dilapidate. Hester made it clear that it is possible to survive outside of prejudice, which is still exemplified today. She displays that the idea of feminism and the reasons leading up to it have not changed for decades.