Pearl As A Symbol In The Scarlet Letter Essays -

Pearl As A Symbol In The Scarlet Letter Pearl as a Powerful Symbol Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Nathaniel Hawthorne's powerful heroine Hester Prynne. Her daughter Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is an enigmatic character serving entirely as a vehicle for symbolism. From her introduction as an infant on her mother's scaffold of shame to the stormy zenith of the story, Pearl is an empathetic and intelligent child. Throughout the story she absorbs the hidden emotions of her mother and magnifies them for all to see, and asks questions nothing but a child's innocence permit her to ask, allowing Hawthorne to weave rich detail into The Scarlet Letter without making the story overly narrative. Pearl is the purest embodiment of literary symbolism. She is, at times, a vehicle for Hawthorne to express the irrational and translucent qualities of Hester and Dimmesdale's illicit bond, and at others a forceful reminder of her mother's sin. Pearl Prynne is her mother's most precious possession and her only reason to live, but also a priceless treasure purchased with her life. Pearl's strange beauty and deeply enigmatic qualities make her an extremely powerful symbol. The product of Hester's sin and agony, Pearl was a painfully constant reminder of her mother's violation of the Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. Hester herself felt that Pearl was given to her not only as a blessing, but also as a punishment worse than death or ignominy. She is tormented by her daughter's childish teasing and endless questioning about the scarlet ?A? and it's relation to Minister Dimmesdale. After Pearl had 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 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 led 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 upon her hapless mother. Hester cannot tell her daughter what has passed between the minister and herself. 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 the symbolic knife in Hester's bosom every time she thought she was free of her weighty burden of sin by flippantly reminding her of the letter and the meaning it bore. Pearl is the only happiness in Hester Prynne's lonely life. Without a child to care for, teach, and love, Hester would have long ago given her soul and life over to evil. When town authorities, shocked at Pearl's apparent belief that she was plucked from a rose bush and not created by God, recommend she be taken from Hester and placed in a school, Hester responds ?God gave me this child!...She is my happiness, she is my torture none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life!...Ye shall not take her! I will die first!? Hester understands that Pearl was God-given as a constant reminder of her sin, and that she is her only requited love and a friend that does not judge her by things past. Later, Hester comments that she would have ?signed my name in the Black Man's book too, and that with mine own blood!? if they had taken Pearl from her. Her daughter is her only earthly salvation, as well as her only friend. Pearl is a blessing upon Hester in