Who Is Pearl's Identity In The Scarlet Letter

Nelson Mandela once said, “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” In most cases, it is difficult to distinguish and fully understand when you have changed. Whether it be a trivial change in habit to a crucial character transformation, it is best to set oneself up against an untouched canvas, and begin to analyze the newfangled person from there. Throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, the concept of identifying one’s changes is apparent in two of the main characters, Pearl and Dimmesdale. Both characters experience their own engenderment of maturity and personal growth, though Dimmesdale’s involvement with it is much more deleterious in comparison to Pearl’s.

Dimmesdale is ultimately harmless and feels tremendous guilt for failing to father her, but the lack of social development in her childhood put a wall between the two them. At the close of chapter 19, the Pearl’s behavior towards Dimmesdale says it all: “The minister--painfully embarrassed, but hoping that a kiss might prove a talisman to admit him into the child’s kindlier regards--bent forward, and impressed one on her brow. Hereupon, Pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite washed off, and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water (Hawthorne 388).” Dimmesdale was attempting to redeem himself to the young girl, but her lack of trust induced an abrasive response to his affection. Most people are hostile towards Hester and herself, and Pearl knows this.

Without an honorable reputation a person is not worthy of respect from others in their society. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, the struggle to shake off the past is an underlying theme throughout the novel. Characters in this novel go through their lives struggling with trying to cope with the guilt and shame associated with actions that lost them their honorable reputation. Particularly, Hawthorne shows the lasting effect that sin and guilt has on two of the main characters in the book: Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale.

Not due to Hester's mothering, but because the child in question was "An emp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right among christened infants..."(Hawthorne 76). This factor, making it difficult to socialize with other children. Pearl has also been known to posses behavioral issues; "This outward mutability indicated, and did not more fairly express the various proprieties of her inner life." Which furthermore, expresses

The Puritan era in New England was inundated with an atmosphere of righteousness and judgment. This culture spurned those who strayed from its religious codes. In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses multiple symbols to bring a deeper meaning to the society, his characters, and to adultery. One of the motifs used comes as the character Pearl, the daughter of the two adulterers. Pearl has multiple descriptions; physically, she is “a lovely and immortal flower,” yet also “an airy sprite . . . as if she were hovering in the air and might vanish” (80, 83). She has a “wild, desperate, defiant mood” and is often referred to as a “flower,” a “bird,” and an “elf” (82, 80, 98, 87). Hawthorne uses Pearl’s multi-layered personality

The Scarlet Letter he gives hints to why she acts like that, but it’s up to us to find the meaning of them. The way the puritan society views pearl affects her behavior in many different ways and in some ways more than others. To understand why she is treated the way she is we first have to think like a puritan. The way we are going

Pearl’s specific function in the novel is to be a living reminder of Hester’s sin. Pearl is considered as

“Imagination is the key ingredient to overcoming fear and doubt.” Throughout “The Scarlet Letter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne tends to emphasize the intensity of Pearl’s imagination by describing the way Pearl saw the world around her and by talking about the way the people who noticed her vivid imagination, referred to her as a “witch-child”. In “The Scarlet Letter”, Pearl grows up secluded from the rest of the children in the New World. She learns to entertain herself and keep herself company by using her imagination. This is one big example of Pearl overcoming the hardships that she grew up with. As the book progresses, and as Pearl gets older, we see her overcome more hardships she is challenged with to create a strong, independent young girl. The poem provided written by Emily Dickinson comes to show how overcoming Pearl’s hardships led her to blossom from a strong, independent young girl, into an even stronger, successful woman.

It was not just Pearl’s aggressive, imaginative form of play that got her in trouble; Pearl was a bad, misbehaved child. Pearl “lacked reference and adaptation to the world into which she was born. The child could not be made amenable to rules” (page 74). Pearl was an outcast, along with her mother. She did not fit in with the community. How could she fit into a community that valued order over everything else? Pearl “who was a dauntless child” (page 83) did not even act like the other children. “After frowning, stamping her and shaking her little hand with a variety of threatening gestures, suddenly made a rush at the knot of her enemies,” (page 83).

Pearl is the daughter of Hester Pryne and Dimmesdale. She was created out of sin because her parents whom committed adultery. Pearl is an outcast almost her whole life in the Puritan Community. She is

In the Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne portrays Pearl as a strong symbol. She is looked upon as a breathing representation of Hester’s sin, the Puritans see Pearl as a “devil child” that should not be accepted, and she is a constant reminder to Hester of her transgression. From the first moment Hawthorne introduces Pearl in The Scarlet Letter it is evident that Pearl is looked at as a mistake. Hawthorne describes the newborn as the one, “whose innocent life has sprung, by the inscrutable decree of Providence, a lovely and immortal flower, out of the rank luxuriance of a guilty passion” (6.82). Pearl is a beautiful outcome from the act of adultery that will have to persevere through all the hatred in her future.

Hawthorne describes Hester picking Pearl name by saying, “But she named the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price,-purchased with all she had,-her mother’s only treasure!” (74). Pearl name justifies her state perfectly that she is not a demon and is just a girl who is not understood. A pearl in the bottom of the ocean is considered the treasure of the sea as, it hidden beauty is inside the clam shell, and the only way to sees the pearl’s beauty is to explore the inside. In comparison, many people in Puritan society depict Pearl as being a demon, when she is actually a normal girl who is structured by her horrendous past. Lastly Pearl has a dark and dreary side due to the pain that she is in with being reprimanded by society, which is described when Hawthorne is describing Hester looking to her daughter as, “Day after day, she looked fearfully into the child’s expanding nature, ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity, that should correspond with with the guiltiness to which she owed her being”

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 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.

In The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is often regarded as a symbol to that of the suffering of Hester Prynne and the shamed Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale but Pearls significance is more than just symbolizing the sin committed by her parents. She in many ways represents the innocence that the puritan belief is regressing itself to have. Hawthorne constructs Pearl as an evolving symbol for Hester and Dimmsdale and her progression as a character is shown through that of the actions set forth by these characters. Since the inception of the act of adultery by Hester and Dimmesdale, Pearl is developed by sin but she is not conformed to sin and as a result symbolizing a release of sin. She is essentially the road from childhood to adulthood, innocence to innocence lost to finally understanding and accepting the card that we are all delved with and that’s life after sin.