The interwoven themes, characters, and symbolism present in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathanial Hawthorne, generate varying interpretations for the reader. Like many authors, Hawthorne uses syntax, diction, and imagery to identify the particular interpretations he desires the reader to develop. Throughout chapters I through VIII, Hawthorne exercises these literary techniques to stress his characterization of Pearl as both a contrast to and allegory for the scarlet letter on Hester’s bosom. The paragraph of Hester’s dialogue starting with the exclamation “God gave me the child!” in chapter VIII connects Hawthorne’s subtle descriptions of Pearl from the previous chapters, allowing readers to understand her dual role of blessing and punishment for …show more content…
Hester’s sinful passion, her symbolic existence within the book, and her ability to keep Hester away from death and further damnation. In her dialogue, Hester repeats the concept of Pearl’s conflicting role as both a blessing and punishment for Hester’s adultery.
The first sentence of the paragraph is telegraphic and an exclamation, attracting the reader’s attention to Hester’s statement that God, not Reverend Dimmesdale, created Pearl. This mention of divine intervention is reminiscent of Hawthorne’s previous construction of a contrast between Mary, the “sacred image of sinless motherhood, who’s infant was to redeem the world”, and Hester with her infant. Hester’s dialogue goes on to explain that “[God] gave [Pearl}, in requital for all things else, which ye had taken from me.” Hawthorne’s use of the noun “requital” produces ambiguity in the reader’s comprehension of Hester’s statement. The denotations of “requital” are a return or reward for service, kindness, etc.; a retaliation for a wrong, injury, etc.; and something given or done as payment, reward, punishment, etc., in return. From these denotations alone, the reader would not be able to decide if Pearl was given to Hester by God as a blessing or as a punishment for her adultery. Hester’s exclamations of “She is my happiness! - she is my torture none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me too!” use anaphora to bring attention to the clarification this dialogue provides: Pearl exists as both a blessing and punishment from God, who is more merciful than the Puritan community but frowns on still intends to make Hester suffer for her …show more content…
sin. Hester’s motivation for naming her child “Pearl” was to convey that Pearl was “her mother’s only treasure”, a small amount of respite for Hester’s loneliness and the reason she has maintained her will to live. However, Pearl’s inhuman qualities, “demon origin”, and refusal to “be made amendable to rules” showcase the child’s punishing role. Hester must watch helplessly as her only child and companion follows the path that will end in the repetition of Hester’s own sins and mistakes. While Pearl may be affixed to the same path of transgression Hester traveled, she is also a living embodiment of the symbol of Hester’s adultery: the scarlet letter. Hawthorne suggests this allegory through his descriptions of both child and symbol as “fiery” and “crimson and gold” with recurring emphasis on Pearl’s scarlet hued attire in chapters I through VIII. In case a reader may have missed these subtle similarities, Hawthorne states in plain metaphor in the passage of Hester’s dialogue that “[Pearl] is the scarlet letter”. Pearl is the living consequence and punishment for Hester’s infidelity, thus embodying the crimson and gold symbol that Hester is mandated to wear by the Puritans. Hester without Pearl would be no different than Hester without sin. This clear statement of an important allegory in the passage elicits the consideration of readers of the indications Hawthorne gave pertaining to the alignment between Pearl and the letter throughout chapters I through VIII. The scarlet letter being the first thing Pearl noticed as an infant, her frequent touching of the symbol, and her peculiar action of throwing wildflowers at the letter can all be linked to the synonymous relationship between Pearl and the “token” of Hester’s adultery. Even when understanding Pearl’s embodiment of the scarlet letter, Hester states in her screrams from her paragraph of dialogue that Pearl is the force keeping her alive and emphasizes that she would die rather than lose her: “Pearl keeps me here in this life!” and “Ye shall not take her!
I will die first!”. The reader can interpret from these statements and the blessing that God gives Hester through Pearl that, in addition to Hester’s will to live being dependent on Pearl, Pearl also keeps Hester’s tortured soul “in this life” and out of the shadowy grasp of Satan. By striving to keep possession of Pearl, care for her, and, however ineffectually, push her away from the path to sin and towards the heavenly father, Hester cannot succumb to temptation and sin again. This keeps Hester’s already tainted soul from being sullied further and gives her a greater chance to save her spirit by repenting and being forgiven by God and the Puritan
community. No single interpretation of symbolism is the only interpretation, but by connecting his characterizations of Pearl from the first eight chapters of The Scarlet Letter in a single, empathetic paragraph of Hester’s dialogue, Nathanial Hawthorne highlights the specific perceptions of Pearl that he wishes the reader to achieve. Pearl is Hester’s “one treasure”, the single positive aspect of her banishment from Puritan society. In contrast, Pearl is also an uncontrollable “imp”, destined to repeat the passionate sins that resulted in anguish for Hester. The scarlet letter and Pearl are synonymous- that is, they are both consequential punishments for Hester’s adultery. Although Hester views Pearl as a continuous reminder of her iniquity and ignominy, Pearl allows Hester to cling to both life and whatever purity is left in her soul.
In The Scarlet Letter, author Nathaniel Hawthorne efficiently conveys his purpose to the audience through the use of numerous rhetorical devices in his novel. Two such rhetorical strategies Hawthorne establishes to convey his purpose of informing the audience of valuable life lessons in The Scarlet Letter are characterization and the theme of duality.
Hester accepts the Puritan way and sees Pearl as a creature of guilt. Another symbol of Pearl is her moral virtue.
The two of them, after Dimmesdale dies, continue with their plans to go back to England where they hope for a better life. Once in England, the two are able to change their lives around for the better. Pearl is even found to have a family of her own: “Mr. Surveyor Pue, who made investigations a century later, … Pearl was not only alive, but married, and happy, and mindful of her mother; and that she would most joyfully have entertained that sad and lonely mother at her fireside” ( Hawthorne 392). Pearl was able to overcome her old life and create a new one, a better one, one that was just for her. Even though her mother was no longer around she tried her best to kept in touch with her. She also kept her and her mother’s experience in mind never to let herself go back to that life. After spending many years in England, Hester finally returns to New England. When she returns she is full of sorrow and regret; however, she continues to wear her A on upon her chest as a reminder of her pain. With returning to the land of sin, people came to Hester, mostly women, with problems of their own. They hope by talking to someone who has been through so much will help them, or give them insight on what life is like to be on the outside: “And, as Hester Prynne had no selfish ends, nor lived in any measure for her own profit and enjoyment, people brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble. Women, more especially,—in the continually recurring trials of wounded, wasted, wronged, misplaced, or erring and sinful passion,—or with the dreary burden of a heart unyielded, because unvalued and unsought,—came to Hester’s cottage, demanding why they were so wretched, and what the remedy! Hester comforted and counseled them, as best she might” (Hawthorne 392-393). Even though Hester was miserable and thought that no
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.
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.
From the moment she is born in the cold, heartless prison, Pearl is placed under scrutiny. The townspeople see her as a visible reminder of sin, and it isn't long until even her own mother searches for evil in her. The girl is described as "the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!"(Hawthorne 103). With her fascination from an early age with the scarlet letter, Hester believes that Pearl's very reason for existence is to torment her mother. Hester fails to realize that the letter is just something bright and significant to which Pearl reacts; instead, she sees every glance, every word aimed at the letter, every touch of Pearl's tiny fingers to her bosom as an added torture resulting from her adultery. Hester, considering Pearl's very existence, goes so far as to question if the impish child is even her own. "Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!"(Hawthorne 99) she tells Pearl, only half-jokingly. In her own way, she wonders whether Pearl was sent to her by God or by a demon wishing to cause her pain. She is not alone in this speculation; many of the town's citizens believe there is something of the Devil in Pearl.
Hester thinks about the mercy of God herself in the story and comes to the conclusion that “man had marked [her] sin by a scarlet letter, which had such potent and disastrous efficacy that no human sympathy could reach her, save it were sinful like herself. God, as a direct consequence of the sin [...] had given her a lovely child” (86). Society decides to punish Hester by public humiliation and eternal shame, while God decides to let nature take its own path, and blesses‒or rather curses‒Hester with her own child. Although this is a more merciful consequence, children are still a large challenge in themselves. Young children are difficult, and Pearl especially seemed to be “a demon offspring; such as, since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother’s sin” (95). Through having to raise Pearl, Hester is still being disciplined for her rash actions, but in a way that will better teach her the lessons she needs to learn from her mistake. When one observes the behaviors of both Hester and Dimmesdale, it becomes clear that Dimmesdale has failed to learn completely from his
As a living reminder of Hester’s extreme sin, Pearl is her constant companion. From the beginning Pearl has always been considered as an evil child. For Hester to take care of such a demanding child, put lots of stress onto her life. Hester at times was in a state of uncontrollable pressure. “Gazing at Pearl, Hester Prynne often dropped her work upon her knees, and cried out with an agony which she would fain have hidden, but which made utterance for itself, betwixt speech and a groan, ‘O Father in heaven- if Thou art still my Father- what is this being which I have brought into the world!’” (Hawthorne, 77).
Through the use of numerous symbols, Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter serves as an allegory for the story of Adam and Eve and its relation to sin, knowledge, and the human condition that is present in human society. Curious for the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which resulted in the revelation of their “humanness” and expulsion from the “divine garden” as they then suffered the pain and joy of being humans. Just as Adam and Eve were expelled from their society and suffered in their own being, so were Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter. Hester was out casted and shunned, while Dimmesdale suffered under his own guilt. After knowledge of her affair is made known, Hester is forced to wear a scarlet letter “A” on her chest to symbolize her crime of adultery, and is separated from the Puritan society. Another “A” appears in the story, and is not embroidered, but instead scarred on Dimmesdale’s chest as a symbol of guilt and suffering. Hester’s symbol of guilt comes in the form of her daughter, Pearl, who is the manifestation of her adultery, and also the living version of her scarlet letter. Each of these symbols come together to represent that with sin comes personal growth and advancement of oneself in society as the sinner endures the good and bad consequences.
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.
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.
Hawthorne manages to create many metaphors within his novel The Scarlet Letter. The rose bush outside the prison door, the black man, and the scaffold are three metaphors. Perhaps the most important metaphor would be the scaffold, which plays a great role throughout the entire story. The three scaffold scenes which Hawthorne incorporated into The Scarlet Letter contain a great deal of significance and importance the plot. Each scene brings a different aspect of the main characters, the crowd or more minor characters, and what truth or punishment is being brought forth.
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 is a blend of realism, symbolism, and allegory. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses historical settings for this fictional novel and even gives historical background information for the inspiration of the story of Hester Prynne in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, ‘The Custom-House’. The psychological exploration of the characters and the author’s use of realistic dialogue only add to the realism of the novel. The most obvious symbol of the novel is the actual scarlet letter ‘A’ that Hester wears on her chest every day, but Hawthorne also uses Hester’s daughter Pearl and their surroundings as symbols as well. Allegory is present as well in The Scarlet Letter and is created through the character types of several characters in the novel.