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What is the relationship between the scarlet letter and hester
Themes of the scarlet letter
What is the relationship between the scarlet letter and hester
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As Pearl and Hester walking in the Forest, Pearl questioning about the Black Man. She questioned why isn’t the Black Man wear the scarlet letter too if he created the scarlet letter on Hester. Pearl had spoken her thought so straightly her perspective towards the scarlet letter is not something sinful or guilty. She views the scarlet letter like a decoration on the cloth. In Romantic’s point of view what Hester did is not sinful or guilty, most importantly she follows her heart, so in the Romantic’s view the scarlet letter is not sinful. Pearl’s thought aligned with the Romantic’s thought symbolized that Pearl in the book Scarlet letter represent Romantic’s view on the Puritanism around
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.
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,
Throughout the novel, Hawthorn gives many reasons that support both sides of the argument over the affects that both the scarlet letter and Hester have on eachother. Yet, when symbolism depicts the scarlet letter to be Pearl, the argument between Hester and the letter is best epitomized in the following quotation. "In giving her existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a being, whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but all in disorder…" (p.62) The quotation, if examined with the thought that "her" refers to the scarlet letter, depicts that although Hester's courage allows the letter to be seen as beautiful, there still remains a shadow of haunting disorder that the letter casts over Hester's life. Hester shapes her life so that it remains in fragile balance with the ominous shadow of the letter.
Pearl had always been extremely curious about her mother's sin and more importantly about the scarlet letter. All through Pearl's childhood, all she had known was the scarlet letter. She had been infatuated by it ever since she was a baby. Pearl's curiosity about the scarlet letter caused her “inevitable tendency to hover over the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her being”(123). She would constantly belabor her mother about it asking questions such as “what does the scarlet letter mean mother”(124). The scarlet letter had become such a huge part of her life that it had almost become a part of her. It had consumed her life and was the main thing she thought about constantly. In this case, secretiveness from Hester caused major curiosity from
Those who read “The Scarlet Letter” perceive Pearl as she who personifies her mother’s sinful extramarital affair. After all, Hester adorns her in the same manner as the infamous letter. Yet, near the end of the book Hawthorne revealed, through Reverend Dimmesdale’s final moments, another reason behind his characterization of Pearl:
Initially Pearl is the symbol of Hesters public punishment for her adultery. As the novel progresses and Pearl matures she symbolizes the deteriation of Hester's like by constantly asking her about the scarlet letter "A". Pearl in a sense wants her mother to live up to her sin and, she achieves this by constantly asking her about the scarlet letter. Another peice of evidence that shows how Pearl symbolizes the sin Hester has committed, is when the town government wants to take Pearl away from her Revrend Dimmsdale convinces the government that Pearl is a living reminder of her sin. This is essentialy true, Hester without Pearl is like having Hester without sin.
The Scarlet letter is a novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The plot focuses on sin in the Puritan society. Hester Prynne, the protagonist, has an affair with Reverend Dimmesdale, which means they are adulterers and sinners. As a result, Pearl is born and Hester is forced to where the scarlet letter. Pearl is a unique character. She is Hester’s human form of her scarlet letter, which constantly reminds her of her sin, yet at the same time, Pearl is a blessing to have since she represents the passion that Hester once had.
A pearl is a precious thing; the finest example of something; pure, white, sinless. However, this distinct character, Pearl is unwanted, a sign of transgression, taint, dirty, and full of sin. In The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne commits adultery and has a baby named Pearl who is the symbol of her mother's sin. Pearl is a rebellious outcast within The Scarlet Letter. She plays a role in key narrative events and due to the embodiment of her mother's sin her actions represent her identity.
Pearl from The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne represents the archetypal form of the loner. She is the daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale and represents the scarlet letter with her mom who was banished for committing adultery. Leonce from The Awakening by Kate Chopin represents the archetypal form of the ruler. He is the husband of Edna Pontellier and he views her more like property than an actual human being. Pearl and Leonce represent the archetypal form of the loner and the ruler in the different societies that they both live in, their relationship with other people, and how they change throughout the story.
Motifs and themes work together to help develop a story. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, illustrates these techniques. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, a young woman and the mother of Pearl, is punished for her crime of adultery. Roger Chillingworth, her former husband who acts as the town doctor, promises himself to figure out who the other sinner is and to punish them, so Hester does not have to face the punishment alone. Arthur Dimmesdale, the young priest and Hester's partner in crime, struggles both with living with the guilt of not publicly confessing his sin and enduring his declining health, due to Roger Chillingworth's treatments. In the end, Dimmesdale publicly confesses he is Pearl's father, and dies
Throughout the novel, Pearl remains focused on discovering her father’s identity. Because she wishes to know her father’s identity, Pearl constantly bombards Hester, her mother, with questions. Most children at her age would never comprehend the cause behind their father’s absence, much less children have the ability to hold a conversation with their mother on the subject, and even fewer children would talk about the topic, as it was forbidden in the Puritan beliefs. Pearl challenges the Puritan’s pious nature through understanding the complicated nature of adultery and pestering her mother on the subject. Furthermore, Pearl’s precociousness enables her to focus on Hester’s scarlet letter and its meaning, which represented her mother’s breaking of Puritan rules. She confronts Hester multiple times about the letter and what it means. “’Mother,’ said little Pearl, ‘the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom…It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!’ ‘Nor ever will, my child, I hope,’ said Hester. ‘And why not, mother?’ asked Pearl, stopping short…’Will it not come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown?’” (Chapter 16). At such a young age, Pearl still possesses the ability to inquire about Hester’s letter and its much deeper meaning, even though she knows its use as a warning for those who rebel against the Puritan society. Finally, Pearl’s precociousness enables her position as the sole townsperson to question the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. The still extremely young Pearl confronts her mother about Dimmesdale. “’Doth he love us?’ said Pearl, looking up with acute intelligence into her mother's face. ‘Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?’” (Chapter 19). Pearl quickly realizes that Hester and Dimmesdale have something
The Scarlet Letter is about the Hester Prynne, a woman who was married, but got pregnant while the husband was away. This causes the town to ostracize her, especially because she does not reveal the identity of the baby's father. Then, Hester's husband comes back to town and tries to weed out the priest who has been the father the whole time, and make him sick with guilt. This book has many Romantic concepts throughout. The importance of the individual and the significance of nature are both very Romantic ideas that are strewn all throughout The Scarlet Letter. Romanticism was a movement that originated in the late 18th century. It was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution and the Age of Reason. Romanticism is mainly about the primacy of the individual and the importance of nature . Much of the big plans in the plot are made in the forest. Hawthorne almost always spends a little bit more time talking about nature when it appears. “This rose-bush, by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness...” (42) Nathaniels spends about half of a page describing the past of the rose-bush. This shows how he cares about the importance of nature, which is one of the main concepts of Romanticism. The way The Scarlet Letter is written in first person-omniscient also shows how Hawthorne believes in the primacy of the individual. The focus on Hester explains the way this book has the Romantic concept of the primacy of the individual. Although the story is mainly focused on Hester, Arthur Dimmesdale, the adultering priest has many Romantic themes about him.
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.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is considered to be a work of romanticism. Romanticism, a movement in art and literature throughout the 19th century, is a collection of ideas or values including individualism, imaginative idealization of childhood, families, love, nature, and the past (Craig White). Hawthorne uses strong feelings, interest in the common man and childhood, celebration of the individual, awe of nature, and importance of imagination throughout his novel to add interest and individuality to the story.