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In The Scarlet Letter, a book written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the character named I think Pearl is a huge symbol in this story. She is a constant reminder to Hester that she has sinned, as is the scarlet letter on her chest. Pearl and the scarlet letter have some things in common too. Both are very eloquently designed.
The scarlet letter is made of luxurious cloth and painstakingly detailed. Pearl is a beautiful young child who seems to even "glow" at times. She is also very intelligent. I think Pearl also resembles sin itself. While sin may seem beautiful and harmless on the outside like Pearl is, it can be a gut-wrenching, guilty experience for some people, in this case Hester Prynne. Take the instances when Pearl comes in contact with other kids.
While she is lovely and pretty on the outside, she can turn into a monster in a second. .".. Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue. " (Pg. 86) Although Pearl caused Hester a lot of grief Hester loved her child very much so and proved it by saying "God gave me the child! He gave her, in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness! -- she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life!
Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!" (Pg. 104) Pearl was also a painfully constant reminder of her mothers violation of the Seventh Commandment: Thou shall not commit adultery. Hester herself felt that Pearl was given to her not only as a blessing but a punishment worse than death or anything else.
Sometimes this reminder was so strong the Hester saw Pearl as not human sometimes. Hester is also tormented by her daughters childish teasing and endless questioning about the scarlet A and its relation to Minister Dimmesdale and his maladies. After Pearl has created a letter A on her own breast out of seaweed. She asks her mother, But in good earnest, now, mother dear, what does this scarlet letter mean? -- and why dost thou wear it on thy bosom? -- and why does the minister keep his hand over his heart? (Pg. 164) In saying this Pearl implies that she knows much, much more about the scarlet letter than she lets on. Throughout the conversation Pearl is impish and teasing, saying one thing and contradicting it soon after.
She refuses to say just what she means, which makes it hard for Hester to give a straight reply. Hester is shocked that her playful daughter has lead their conversation to the topic of the scarlet letter, and even more disturbed that she has assumed Hester's letter and Dimmesdale's habit of pressing his hand to his heart branch from the same issue. Pearl, in bringing this forbidden and painful subject about, unwittingly inflicts agony on her mother. Hester cannot tell her daughter what has passed between the minister and herself and come clean. Pearl symbolizes a hidden part of her mother that has not, and will never be exposed and therefore washed free of sin.
Pearl was always drawn to the A, and seemed to twist a symbolic knife in Hester's bosom every time she thought she was free of her weighty burden of sin by reminding her of the letter and the meaning it bore. Pearls strange beauty and unusual intelligence, and the questioning that wrenched Hester's heart when the child seemed to somehow know about the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. All these points in the story tell the reader that Pearl had some kind of devil in her. But on the other hand maybe Pearl was just completing her service as a symbol of pain and hardship, but more importantly a symbol of love, salvation, and the deep bond between two lovers condemned by the strict rules of the Puritan days. Bibliography:
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Research essay sample on Scarlet Letter Constant Reminder
