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What does pearl symbolize scarlet letter
Symbolism in pearl
What does pearl symbolize scarlet letter
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In the Scarlet Letter Pearl is a huge character, she has so many symbols that she represents between Hester and Dimmesdale. The role of Pearl in the Scarlet Letter is much more than just being a symbol of sin and adultery. The Four main characters of this novel is, Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Hester is the mother of pearl, she was married to chillingworth but was accused of adultery. Pearl is the child of Hester and Dimmesdale, she represents a lot of different symbols in this story. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl, but is also apart of the towns magistrate. Chillingworth was married to hester, Chillingworth tortures dimmesdale because he wants revenge for his sins. There is a misconception about pearl that she is only the symbol of sin between Dimmesdale and Hester. This is wrong because Pearl has many more symbols than just being sin. Although sin is one of Pearls symbols. She symbols the sin between Hester and Dimmesdale as they commit their crimes of Adultery. In the days of Hester and Dimmesdale, adultery was not taken …show more content…
Pearl is also innocent because she did not make the choice and she is not old enough to understand the sins that Dimmesdale and Hester have committed. This is shown a lot throughout the book and thats because Pearl doesnt have any worries, She is just a young little girl that wants to run around and play in the brook. This is shown throughout the whole book, One of the times that i think it showed Pearl is a innocent girl is when Hester took the Scarlet Letter off. Thats because Pearl threw a fit and told her mom to put it on. But Pearl didn't realize that it would make their lifes better if she left her mom take it off. This is a prime example of Pearl being a innocent little girl that doesn’t any better and what she has grown up with forever. This is why one of Pearls biggest symbols is
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, tells the story of a young adulteress named Hester Prynne and her bastard daughter, Pearl, as they endure their residence in a small town of the Massachusetts British settlement in the1600s. Pearl’s illegitimate birth is the result of the relationship between Hester Prynne and a minister of the Puritan church, Arthur Dimmesdale. Through public defamation and a perpetual embroidery of an “A” upon her dress, Hester is punished for her crime. Whereas, Arthur choses to suppress the secret over illuminating the truth and endures internal and self-inflicted punishment as consequence.
For the past month our class has been reading the scarlet letter. There has been some interesting topics that sometimes people skip as they're reading. When someone reads the scarlet letter they tend to think that the book is about Hester prynne who had affairs and died being buried to the person whom she had an affair with. But there's more to that. The story starts out with Hester prynne an adulterous women who ends up in jail with her baby named pearl. Later in the book you will found out that pearl was being called the “devils child” because of the sin that her mother had committed. Pearl changes throughout the book because she never really finds out who her father is. Reveren dimsdale is the
Pearl is a symbol of Hester’s transgressions and even has similar qualities as the sin which she represents. Pearl’s life and behavior directly reflects the unacceptable and abnormal nature of Hester’s adulterous sin. Hester is plagued with more than just a letter “A”; she is given a child from her affair who is just as much a reminder of her sin as the scarlet letter. Ultimately Hester overcomes the shame associated the scarlet letter and creates a sense of family for herself and Pearl. This relationship is integral to the theme of this novel and the development of its characters.
Hester's daughter, Pearl, functions primarily as a symbol. She is quite young during most of the events of this novel—when Dimmesdale dies she is only seven years old—and her real importance lies in her ability to provoke the adult characters in the book. She asks them pointed questions and draws their attention, and the reader's, to the denied or overlooked truths of the adult world. In general, children in The Scarlet Letter are portrayed as more perceptive and more honest than adults, and Pearl is the most perceptive of them all.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's work, The Scarlet Letter, nature plays a very symbolic role. Throughout the book, nature is incorporated into the story line. One example of this is with the character of Pearl. Pearl is very different than all the other characters due to her special relationship with Nature. Hawthorne personifies Nature as sympathetic towards sins against the puritan way of life. Hester's sin causes Nature to accept Pearl.
In his novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the storyline of Hester Prynne’s adultery as a means of criticizing the values of Puritan society. Hester and her daughter Pearl, whom she conceives out of wedlock, are ostracized from their community and forced to live in a house away from town. The reflections of Pearl in different mirrored surfaces represent the contrast between the way Puritans view her and who she actually is. In the fancy mirrored armor of the society’s elite class, Pearl is depicted harshly as a devilish and evil spawn, unable to live up to the expectations of such a pristine society. However, in the natural reflections of the earth’s surface, Pearl’s beauty and innocence is much more celebrated. The discrepancies between these positive depictions of Pearl as an angelic figure and the Puritans’ harsh judgment of her character suggest that Puritans inflated her oddities and strange habits in order to place her and Hester in a place of inferiority within the community. Hawthorne employs reflection and mirrors in his novel to convey the Puritans’ misconstrual of Pearl as an elfish, evil child and to critique the severity of early Puritan moral codes.
Pearl is first introduced as the young babe clutched to Hester's chest, as she stands before a crowd of puritans beholding her humiliation. Embarrassed of the glaring letter on her chest, Hester thinks to hold little Pearl in front of her scarlet mark; however, she resolves that “one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another” (P.37). It is here that we see for the first time that Pearl has been reduced to nothing more than a symbol of Hester's sin, synonymous with the scarlet letter. As Pearl grows, so does the obvious nature with which Hawthorne portrays her as the scarlet letter. Throughout the book, we see Pearl dressed in bright clothes,
The Puritan life is based purely on sin. The Puritans believe that all people are sinners and are thus despised and hated by God. Sinners are subject to the worst punishments and suffer the worst torment. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, several characters serve as models of sinners in agony from their error. Both Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne bear the punishment of their adultery, which evidenced itself in their daughter Pearl. While Dimmesdale plagues himself with guilt and Hester lives with the brand of the scarlet "A", it is Pearl who receives the worst penalty, suffering for a sin which she did not even commit. The village where she resides associates her with the circumstances of her birth, branding her with a reputation as difficult to bear as her mother's. Although many in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter endure the results of sin, none have punishment equal to that of little Pearl's.
Pearl and the other Puritan children have a huge role in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Pearl is displayed as very different from any of the other children in the book. The attitudes of the children tell the reader a lot about the lives of the Puritans. The story emphasizes that children were to be seen but not heard however, Hester chooses to let Pearl live a full and exciting life. Hester does not restrict pearl or hide her from anyone or anything. This is part of the reason that Pearl becomes such a colorful child. People see Pearl as a child of sin; the devil’s child. Pearl is quite the opposite. She is a happy and intelligent little girl. Pearl is born with an incredible sense of intuition. She sees the pain her mother feels but does not understand where the pain is coming from. Pearl knows somehow deep in her heart that Dimmesdale is her father. She takes a very strong liking to him. This makes it much harder on dimmesdale to work through the guilt seeing what a beautiful thing came from his terrible secret. Pearl serves as a blessing to and a curse to Hester. Hester Prynne loves her daughter dearly but she is a constant reminder of the mistakes she has made.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Pearl, is a symbol of sin and adultery in the sense that she leads Dimmsdale and Hester to their confession and the acceptance of their sins. A beauitful daughter of the towns adulturist has somtimes demon like traits. She is also the only living symblol of the scarlet letter "A". In another way Pearl also makes a connection between Dimmsdale and Hester.
This, as Arthur Dimmesdale almost prophetically expresses in the early scenes of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, was the role of Pearl, the elfish child borne of his and Hester Prynne's guilty passion. Like Paul's thorn in the flesh, Pearl would bring trouble, heartache, and frustration to Hester, but serve a constructive purpose lying far beyond the daily provocations of her childish impishness. While in many respects a tormentor to Hester, Pearl was also her savior, while a reminder of her guilt, a promoter of honesty and true Virtue; and while an embodiment of Hester's worst qualities, a vision of a better life for Hester and for herself.
Pearl is Hester’s human form of her scarlet letter; both she and the scarlet letter constantly remind Hester of her sin of adultery. Pearl is the result of Hester’s adultery; therefore she has a strong connection with the scarlet letter. As a young girl, Pearl had always had a fascination and obsession with her mother’s scarlet letter. For example “In the forest scene when Hester takes off the Scarlet letter, Pearl becomes frantically disturbed and won’t quiet down until Hester has it back on her dress, as if by discarding the letter Hester has discarded Pearl,” (Johnson: A Literary Analysis of The Scarlet Letter, pg.1). The scarlet letter is a part of Hester, as is Pearl, if Hester removes the letter, she also disowns Pearl. The only way Pearl recognize her mother is when she has the letter on. Hester dresses Pearl in red so she can represent her scarlet letter. In the chapter, “The Governor’s Hall,” Pearl was described; “The child’s whole appearance reminded the beholder of the token which Hester Prynne was doomed to wear upon her bosom. It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (The Scarlet Letter, pg. 103 Johnson: Understanding The Scarlet Letter pg.1).
Often in novels writers use symbolism as a device to make their themes and ideas come across clearly to the reader. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses many forms of symbolism. People and objects are symbolic of events and thoughts of hawthorn throughout the course of the book. The Scarlet letter itself is a symbol he uses to contradict the puritanical society of the story. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Pearl both as a symbol in the novel, and to work on the consciences of Hester and Dimmesdale.
The naivete of a child is often the most easily subjected to influence, and Pearl of the Scarlet Letter is no exception. Throughout the writing by Nathaniel Hawthorne, she observes as Dimmesdale and the rest of the Puritan society interact with the scarlet letter that Hester, her mother, wears. Hawthorne tries to use Pearl’s youth to teach the reader that sometimes it’s the most harmless characters that are the most impactful overall. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Pearl has learned the greatest lesson from the scarlet letter through her innocence as a youth and her realization of the identity of both herself and her mother.
She understood the scarlet letter more and accepted Dimmesdale as her father because in the end Dimmesdale was the one who “saved” Pearl and turned her human. Pearl, who now has sympathies and feelings, had finally broken free of the symbolism she had on the scarlet letter. It was in nature, the forest, that she was able to find the answers she needed to know to be able to grow and keep discovering things. Therefore, this shows how much of a bond nature and Pearl created with each other due to the scarlet