In the novel, “The Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there was an abundance of symbolism. Pearl had the most important symbolism in the novel. Pearl stood for multiple things; the scarlet letter, hope, and truth. Pearl’s significance in the novel is to be the human form of the scarlet letter; to remind Hester of her sinful nature, to symbolize optimism, and to reveal clarity.
Pearl proves herself to be the human form of the scarlet letter by being a constant reminder of Hester’s adultery. Pearl, like the scarlet letter, is a result of a sinful crime and Hester is forcefully given the job to bear the ostracizes of the community by wearing the letter and raising the “elfish,” child. Hester also dresses Pearl in elegant crimson and/or gold gowns; which are the same colors of the letter on Hester’s chest. Not only is Pearl the scarlet letter because of the way she dresses, but also because Hester believes that God sent Pearl to Hester as both a gift and a curse. Pearl is described as intelligent, imaginative, inquisitive, determined, and even obstinate at
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times; but, she her mood swings make the community call her, “elf,” or “imp,” child. Pearl does more than resemble the scarlet letter placed on Hester’s bosom, but she also displays ambition. Pearl illustrates the meaning of aspiration in the novel.
A perfect example is simply her name, “Pearl.” Hester names Pearl for the beauty and purity that she intends for her daughter to have. A pearl is said to exemplify purity, generosity, and integrity of its wearer. It is also said to show wisdom acquired through experience. Pearl shows hope by enduring the hardships in her life and becoming a rich and beautiful heiress. Hester and Pearl are outcasted by all of society in Boston, but Pearl remains exuberant in happiness. Hester and Pearl escape the ostracizes from the community and head to Europe. When Pearl is all grown, she inherits Roger Chillingworth’s fortune and also marries into great fortune. Throughout all the adversity and difficulty in Pearl’s life, she slowly climbed up the social ladder and eventually conquered the highest point of society. Pearl embodies hope as well as she reveals
truth. Pearl reveals a sort of truth in the novel. Pearl is not slow to realize that Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale share something in common. Dimmesdale begins to show affection toward Pearl and Hester, but only where the public cannot see them. The first instance is when Dimmesdale invited Hester and Pearl to stand on the scaffold, hand-in-hand, with him in the middle of the night. The second occurrence is when Hester, Dimmesdale, and Pearl met in the forest and Dimmesdale kissed Pearl. In both times, Pearl asked if they would all walk, hand-in-hand, to town together and each time, Hester discouraged Pearl. This reveals the truth of Dimmesdale’s emotions; Dimmesdale claims he loves Pearl and Hester but he does not love them enough to boldly expound his love for them and his true nature. Pearl’s significance in the novel is to be the ultimate scarlet letter as she reassures Hester of her act of adultery, demonstrate hope, and present the truth. Many other character resembled and symbolized something but Pearl’s symbol was the most significant and most seen and mentioned throughout the novel. Like the scarlet letter, Pearl bore both gifts in one hand and a knife in the other.
Pearl looks like the human version of the scarlet letter. Pearl is an example of the innocent result of sin. All the kids make fun of Pearl and they disclude her from everything. She never did anything wrong, but everyone treats her like she committed the sin also. Pearl acts out against the children that make fun of her and acts like a crazy child. She cannot control the sin that her parents committed. Hester accepts the Puritan way and sees Pearl as a creature of
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.
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,
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.
In the Scarlet Letter several of the characters names were symbolic and had meaning. Pearl’s name references her beauty to the beauty of a pearl as seen in the quote “expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white unimpassioned lustre” (page 133, Hawthorn) as well as how much it cost Hester to have pearl referencing how expensive Pearls are as see in the quote “as being of great price--purchased with all she had…” (page 133, Hawthorn).
Pearl had a great role in the scarlet letter. Her differences from the other Puritan children showed the reader the effect Pearls life had on her personality. Pearl was seen as the Devil’s child or a child from sin. Pearl proved to be quite the opposite, although she wasn't quite a human character but more of a symbol she added a touch of love and beauty to a story filled with hate and pain. Pearl really was the ray of sunshine in this world. Though she came from something seen as a sin she was truly a blessing. She helped her mom through her times of grief and she brought Dimmesdale out of hiding. In the end she was the only pure and true individual. Pearl was an amazing child who gave this story light.
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.
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.
Although Pearl is looked at as the result of Hester’s sin, she is a blessing to her mother as well. Her name, “Pearl,” is fitting because of what she means to Hester. For instance “Hester names her”Pearl” because she has come to great price, and Hester believed that Pearl is her only reason for living,” (Johnson: Understanding The Scarlet Letter pg.1). Pearl motivates her mother to keep on going when she is tempted to give up. In the novel, Mistress Hibbins asks Hester to join her in a witches gathering, but she declines saying if she had lost Pearl, she would have gone.
Pearl as Living Symbol in The Scarlet Letter Pearl. A child born of sin. Conceived by a lust. Created by impurity. It is a As the result of her parents falling from grace, she represents the sinfulness of their act, and is a continual tool for the recollection of. their dubious deeds.
Pearl is the subject of mystery throughout Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, and Hester Prynne frequently ponders pearl of being the gift of God or perhaps the burden of Satan. Throughout the story pearl is often compared or described looking and acting like an “elf” or “imp”. This may imply that pearl was sent to Hester for another purpose. Was Pearl sent to Hester to torment her as punishment for her crime or was she a blessing and could God or even Satan Have sent this child to Hester? And was Pearl truly an elf creature or Hester’s child? Why did Hawthorne use fairy like creatures as a way to describe Pearl?
Throughout the story, Pearl represents the themes of Appearance vs. Reality, Isolation, and Good Can Come from Evil. Pearl is an innocent girl who is shown as a devil, when in reality, she is just the opposite. The community’s perception of her keeps her isolated from the Puritan people, which cause her emotional pain. However, it can be seen that Pearl is the only good to come from Hester and Dimmesdale, and she deserves the life that she gets in the end of the novel. Pearl shows many themes in the novel and proves to have a lot of depth in her character. She is the one hope that the reader holds onto until the end of the novel.
Pearl has spent her entire life knowing who her mother is and identifies her with and only with the letter on. “Pearl’s image, crowned, and girdled with flowers, but stamping its foot, wildly gesticulating, and in the midst of all, still pointing its small forefinger at Hester’s bosom!” (Hawthorne 173). In this scene, Hester takes the letter off when she is with Dimmesdale, and Pearl refuses to come near her until she puts the letter back on; she recognizes that the letter is a part of who her mother is. The identity of herself is also uncovered as a result of the letter. Pearl sees how the Puritan society treats her mother and refuses to act likewise. Not only does she stand up to those who judge Hester, but she also practices being kind instead. “Pearl was almost sure, [the bird] had been hit by a pebble and fluttered away with a broken wing. But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport; because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-breeze, or as wild as Pearl herself” (Hawthorne 147). Pearl cares for the wellbeing of those around her, both human and animal. This has shaped who she is through her kindness and her intelligence; it becomes what her identity is and displays how she identifies her mother, verifying that she was impacted the most by the scarlet