Nature And Pearl In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, nature and Pearl are depicted as innocence and evil. Hester brings her daughter, Pearl, to live in the forest because they are not accepted by society due to the Scarlet letter. The relationship between these two is Pearl creates a bond with nature mentally since society rejects her as a product of sin. Nature is viewed in the eyes of a Puritan as a place where witches live to perform witchcraft and where darkness inhabits. However, the relationship between nature and Pearl gives her freedom and growth.
In Puritan society, nature is thought of a place where many evil things occur, but nature gives birth to innocence and beauty. This is why Hester brings her to live in the forest. She can keep Pearl hidden away from the Puritan society because her daughter is the product of her adultery. Nature also is the child of earth just like Pearl is the child of Hester. Since they’re both children, it makes a much more understandable reason why they can get along so well. Pearl considers nature her playmate. When she goes to play by the brook, the brook is described by Nathaniel Hawthorne as,“Continually, indeed, as it stole onward the streamlet kept up a babble, kind, quiet, soothing, but melancholy, like the voice of a young child that was spending its infancy without …show more content…

She understood the scarlet letter more and accepted Dimmesdale as her father because in the end Dimmesdale was the one who “saved” Pearl and turned her human. Pearl, who now has sympathies and feelings, had finally broken free of the symbolism she had on the scarlet letter. It was in nature, the forest, that she was able to find the answers she needed to know to be able to grow and keep discovering things. Therefore, this shows how much of a bond nature and Pearl created with each other due to the scarlet

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