Adolescent Experiences and Life: A Nathaniel Hawthorne Study

One’s experience in adolescent years will ultimately affect their entire life. As children grow up, they are shaped by the experience of their childhood, these will affect every aspect of their lives. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses imagery and details of Pearl to suggest how the abuse from by others and even her own mother have affected her in order to convey her contorted values and desires which are consequences of repeated misconduct and mistreatment received from others.
When children are treated unfairly because of perceived ideas, it is only reasonable to assume the child will have unusual values just as Pearl’s values have become twisted from the norm. Throughout her life has endured lonesomeness and fear, her foundation has been very uneven.

As her father, Reverend Dimmesdale returns from he wanders through the town and he stumbles upon the scaffold. He begins to think of how the townspeople would react to seeing him upon the scaffold of shame. He then hears someone approaching footsteps, and they belong to Hester and Pearl. He says to them, to “ Come up hither once again, and we will stand all three together”(Hawthorne 105) because Hester and Pearl would like to be a family. Although Dimmesdale wanted his new found family, he can not bring himself to stand “all three together”, this enrages Pearl. Pearl always wanted to become a family, as she was raised believing her father was the devil, and she was a little devilish child. This causes Perl to become upset with Dimmesdale, when he says to “stand all together” but does not really mean what he says. Pearl gets angrier when she lost what she has desired most her whole life.In addition Pearl's lack of guidance. As Pearl has grown up, she has endured mentally abused by the townspeople. Over time, she has grown to hate them and “could not be made to amenable to the rules.”(Hawthorne 62.) According to the town people, she was a devil spawn, so she became what that believed. As she becomes this unruly child, she comes to “not be made to amend” the rules because she believes she does not have to follow the. Her fundamental belief the townspeople are against her, therefore, she should not have to follow the “rules” of society. Pearl does as she pleased and prove the townspeople correct, allowing her fundamental belief to be morphed to the townspeople hatred and dislike of her.
As Hester introduces Pearl to the world as a child, she’s fascinated by the ornate decorations of her mother’s A, but the A means much more about Pearl means much about her than meets the eye.

When Pearl’s old enough, she and her mother have fun while collecting flowers, when Pearl started to “Fling them, one by one, at her mother’s bosom”(Hawthorne 67). As Pearl grows up, she’s constantly fascinated by the A on Hester's bosom. Unknown to Pearls the product of sin, and a constant reminder of evil. As Pearl “flings them” at the A, she reminds everyone of her mother sins, and how she's the product of sin. The townspeople, in turn, shunned Pearl because of the fear of the abnormal, and even her own mother treats her strangely, as one might guess. While Hester tried to discipline her child, she decided to “permit the child to be swayed by her own impulses.”(Hester 63) By allowing Pearls to ultimately decide her own fate and discipline. Pearls is left to her own devices, allowing her to have the run of the world it may seem. In return, shes allowed to be “swayed by her own impulses” allows her to form her own ideas of rules and what discipline should be. As she has no idea of discipline, she cannot conform to the towns norms, therefore not only is she an outsider, she’s in a way a freak to the

town.
In many ways, Pearl was neglected and abused by others in her town and in her own home. This slowly caused her to conform to her own rules and ignore the townspeople rules and beliefs. As a result, she had very twisted ideas of rules and will forever be an outsider.