Pearl was a sort of living symbol of her mother’s scarlet letter. She was the physical consequence of sexual sin. But even as a reminder of Hester’s sin, Pearl was more than a mere punishment to her mother: she was also a blessing. She represented not only “sin” but also the vital spirit and passion that engendered that sin. Hester gave her daughter the name Pearl because she got the baby with all she had, Pearl was her only treasure.
Because she lived in such a God driven and puritan town, the judicial system of the settlement had decided for her to acknowledge her sin by embroidering a vibrant scarlet letter “A” onto her dress to symbolize adultery. She was often ostracized from the rest of the town since she was forced to wear the crimson “A” everywhere she went. As well as the letter to remind her of the wrong she had done, the affair had left her with a fatherless daughter named Pearl. Later in the novel we discover the father is the Reverend of the town, the admirable Arthur Dimmesdale. Through pain, remorse and agony the novel reveals that it is better to tell a harmless lie then to confess a hurtful truth.
Nay, I never should have lost it…” (Hawthorne 172). Hester lives with the guilt of having told Arthur that she is married. She is married to the demon that is slowly ruining her lover’s life. When the two meet in the forest after the seven years past, Hester has the opportunity to release the guilt she has buried inside of her for so many years. Arthur admits, “Happy are you, Hester, that wear the scarlet letter openly upon your bosom!
The simile depicts, what the speaker believes, are demonstrative acts of love, with her own conception in her mother’s womb as the most genuine. She convinces herself that these two actions by her father must certainly prove his love for her. When the young woman learns that her father has lied to her about the dress, she continues the illusion she has created, even though there are many indications in the poem that her father, in
Hawthorne also makes the scaffold a very important main stage for the characters. A. “Those who had before known her, and had expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out, and made a halo of the misfortune and ignominy in which she was enveloped.” (Hawthorne 50) B. “Thus she shal be a living sermon against sin […]” (Hawthorne 58) C. “After the kiss on the scaffold, Pearl, reconciled to the conditions of life, will not ‘forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it.’(p.386)” (MacLean 14) D. “The minister who had once sinned but would sin no more died on the scaffold exposing his guilt.” (Bell) IV. Finally, at the end of the book, Hawthorne makes Hester go back to Boston in order to make the reader feel different things about her.
The red letter “A” that Hester was forced to wear on her chest for committing adultery was a major symbol. It represents sin; Hester’s sin naturally. The scarlet letter she has to wear on her chest is a scarlet A. Her scarlet letter, like her sin, is something she must always deal with and is something she can never escape fully. “But, on one side of the portal, and rooted almost at the threshold, was a wild rose-bush, covered, in this month of June,
Mary was Jesus’ mother, and there is a prayer called Hail Mary, which if she were to pray could bring her salvation. This is great representation of how Mrs. Turpin needs to gather a since of humanity and tolerance of others. Then without hesitation, Mary Grace throws the book at Mrs. Turpin, and proceeds to choke her. But before she falls asleep Mary tells Mrs. Turpin to “go back to hell where you came from, you old wort
After committing the sin of adultery, Hester Prynne endured her coarse punishment of standing on the scaffold and wearing an embroidered “A” on her chest. The theme of this chapter is that no sin, as heinous as adultery, will go unpunished. Unlike Dimmsdale, who hadn’t been condemned for his sin, Hester beared her punishment of being publicly humiliated given to her by the stringent puritans. Instead, Dimmsdale experienced a punishment of great suffering out of guilt. Hester Prynne, the wife of a learned, English-man, was accused of being with another man while her husband was said to soon be joining Hester in Massachusetts.
Pearl: the Constant Reminder In the 1650's the strict Puritan community, in Boston Massachusetts punished those who sinned. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, the main character, Hester, is punished and looked down upon for committing adultery. When Hester has her baby, Pearl, The Puritans see her as having a bit of evil in her. Pearl, who is a constant reminder to Hester about the sin she had committed, is a significant symbol in this novel. In the beginning of the novel, Pearl always reminds Hester of her sin, even though she does not mean to do so purposely.
Hawthorne uses the imaginative and symbolic form of the romance to veil the impression of the serious themes in his novel. The young woman Hester Prynne is the main character in The Scarlet Letter. She is accused of adultery, and because she does not confess who the father of her illegitimate child is, she gets sentenced to wearing a scarlet letter on her breast as a sign and reminder for her and the Puritan community she lives in. Expelled from the community, she lives on the edge of the village as an outcast and has to find her own way. Other important characters in the novel are Hester´s daughter Pearl, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth.