Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Thesis statement the portrayal of women in literature
Thesis statement the portrayal of women in literature
Scarlet letter symbolism and characterization
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Pearl, Ahead of Her Time Pearl Prynne from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter refuses to follow rules of the strict, overbearing Puritan society through her contrasting modernism and precociousness. Pearl’s modern mentality rebels against the stern colonial Puritan culture. In Chapter 24, Chillingworth grants Pearl a large amount of land in the New World, breaking the boundaries previously thought that only men could own land. “So Pearl—the elf child—the demon offspring, as some people up to that epoch persisted in considering her—became the richest heiress of her day in the New World. Not improbably this circumstance wrought a very material change in the public estimation” (Chapter 24). Pearl, as one of the few women to own land during …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Pearl remains focused on discovering her father’s identity. Because she wishes to know her father’s identity, Pearl constantly bombards Hester, her mother, with questions. Most children at her age would never comprehend the cause behind their father’s absence, much less children have the ability to hold a conversation with their mother on the subject, and even fewer children would talk about the topic, as it was forbidden in the Puritan beliefs. Pearl challenges the Puritan’s pious nature through understanding the complicated nature of adultery and pestering her mother on the subject. Furthermore, Pearl’s precociousness enables her to focus on Hester’s scarlet letter and its meaning, which represented her mother’s breaking of Puritan rules. She confronts Hester multiple times about the letter and what it means. “’Mother,’ said little Pearl, ‘the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom…It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!’ ‘Nor ever will, my child, I hope,’ said Hester. ‘And why not, mother?’ asked Pearl, stopping short…’Will it not come of its own accord, when I am a woman grown?’” (Chapter 16). At such a young age, Pearl still possesses the ability to inquire about Hester’s letter and its much deeper meaning, even though she knows its use as a warning for those who rebel against the Puritan society. Finally, Pearl’s precociousness enables her position as the sole townsperson to question the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. The still extremely young Pearl confronts her mother about Dimmesdale. “’Doth he love us?’ said Pearl, looking up with acute intelligence into her mother's face. ‘Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?’” (Chapter 19). Pearl quickly realizes that Hester and Dimmesdale have something
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.
In literature, authors often represent a character’s hidden emotions or inner thoughts by presenting them in a separate character. Such is the case in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter as he uses Pearl to express Hester’s inner thoughts and hidden emotions. “Above all, the warfare of Hester’s spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl.”
Pearl displays her kindness towards others despite being placed in a situation where her life could be subjected to change. During the scene where Pearl flings wildflowers at her mother, she dances around the garden every time she hits the scarlet letter, exhibiting that she was having a good time. Pearls mother asked whose child Pearl was, and was given a response filled with joy and compassion. Hawthorne describes Pearl’s response as saying “Oh, I am your little Pearl!”(Hawthorne 89) Pearls response means that Pearl is Hester's child, and Hester's child only. Her response, and creation of a game that was originally made to be a punishment displays not only her compassion for her mother, but also her utilization of her imagination to make the most out of an unfortunate situation. Perhaps the most painful example of Pearl’s compassion comes through a passage which Hawthorne writes about the conversation between Dimmesdale and Pearl writing “But wilt thou promise to take take my hand and my mother's hand, to-morrow noontide,” and
Pearl was known as the devils child when she was young. She would have temper tantrums and do things her mother did not like. Pearl didn't know the true meaning of he letter on her mother's bosom. When the book ended, it did not say what happened to Pearl and how she lived her life from there. I believe that after Dimmesdale died and as Pearl got older, Hester told her what the true meaning of the scarlet letter was. I think Pearl always remembered that she was the result of that letter on her mother's bosom. To that, she would live her life truly and honestly.
Those who read “The Scarlet Letter” perceive Pearl as she who personifies her mother’s sinful extramarital affair. After all, Hester adorns her in the same manner as the infamous letter. Yet, near the end of the book Hawthorne revealed, through Reverend Dimmesdale’s final moments, another reason behind his characterization of Pearl:
Children are, by nature, incredibly sensitive creatures. In literature and art they are commonly portrayed as beings capable of sensing the emotions experienced by the adults around them simply by observing one’s body language and facial expressions. Additionally, children are born with an innate sense of curiosity which drives them to discover the cause of the feelings they detect. Some children experience heightened levels of empathy and curiosity that can alienate them from their peers; such is the case with Nathanial Hawthorne’s Pearl Prynne in The Scarlet Letter. Conceived in sin, Hester Prynne’s daughter is viewed by the Puritan community of Salem as nothing more than a demon in an angel’s clothing; she is an unholy creature who not only
Pearl is the living embodiment of the scarlet letter because she forces Hester and Dimmesdale to accept their sins. The Puritan society looks at Pearl as a child of the devil, and a black hearted girl because she is the result of sin. Hester and Dimmesdale are both in the same situation in Pearl's eyes. Pearl wants Hester to realize that she is not the worst person in the world before she removes the scarlet letter. Pearl wants Dimmesdale to accept his sin, and be part of their life publicly.
Pearl was often treated with hostility for no reason. Her only "crime" was her existence. The children in The Scarlet Letter were cruel out of learned behavior. They knew the significance of the scarlet letter, but did not fully understand it. The children observed that the adults treated Hester with hostility and with to imitate the adults they harassed and teased Pearl. Pearl being bullied further emphasizes her innocence and how she is a victim because of it. Also, Pearl has a strange attachment to the scarlet letter. When she was a baby, she would reach for her mother's breast and try to grab the letter. She seems to by natural instinct realize that it has great significance, but when she confronts Hester about it she lies to her, telling Pearl that she wears it because of its beautiful gold thread (Hawthorne 115). Besides being the symbol of innocence, her name also represents a treasure and great
In the Scarlet Letter Pearl is a huge character, she has so many symbols that she represents between Hester and Dimmesdale. The role of Pearl in the Scarlet Letter is much more than just being a symbol of sin and adultery. The Four main characters of this novel is, Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Chillingworth. Hester is the mother of pearl, she was married to chillingworth but was accused of adultery. Pearl is the child of Hester and Dimmesdale, she represents a lot of different symbols in this story. Dimmesdale is the father of Pearl, but is also apart of the towns magistrate. Chillingworth was married to hester, Chillingworth tortures dimmesdale because he wants revenge for his sins. There is a misconception about pearl that she is only the symbol of sin between Dimmesdale and Hester. This is wrong because Pearl has many more symbols than just being sin. Although sin is one of Pearls symbols. She symbols the sin between Hester and Dimmesdale as they commit their crimes of Adultery. In the days of Hester and Dimmesdale, adultery was not taken
Hester's daughter, Pearl, functions primarily as a symbol. She is quite young during most of the events of this novel—when Dimmesdale dies she is only seven years old—and her real importance lies in her ability to provoke the adult characters in the book. She asks them pointed questions and draws their attention, and the reader's, to the denied or overlooked truths of the adult world. In general, children in The Scarlet Letter are portrayed as more perceptive and more honest than adults, and Pearl is the most perceptive of them all.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne's work, The Scarlet Letter, nature plays a very symbolic role. Throughout the book, nature is incorporated into the story line. One example of this is with the character of Pearl. Pearl is very different than all the other characters due to her special relationship with Nature. Hawthorne personifies Nature as sympathetic towards sins against the puritan way of life. Hester's sin causes Nature to accept Pearl.
Pearl and the other Puritan children have a huge role in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Pearl is displayed as very different from any of the other children in the book. The attitudes of the children tell the reader a lot about the lives of the Puritans. The story emphasizes that children were to be seen but not heard however, Hester chooses to let Pearl live a full and exciting life. Hester does not restrict pearl or hide her from anyone or anything. This is part of the reason that Pearl becomes such a colorful child. People see Pearl as a child of sin; the devil’s child. Pearl is quite the opposite. She is a happy and intelligent little girl. Pearl is born with an incredible sense of intuition. She sees the pain her mother feels but does not understand where the pain is coming from. Pearl knows somehow deep in her heart that Dimmesdale is her father. She takes a very strong liking to him. This makes it much harder on dimmesdale to work through the guilt seeing what a beautiful thing came from his terrible secret. Pearl serves as a blessing to and a curse to Hester. Hester Prynne loves her daughter dearly but she is a constant reminder of the mistakes she has made.
The members of the Puritan society view Pearl as a weird, strange little girl, born from a sinful act. However, the characters with a closer, more in depth relationship to the child, feel differently towards Pearl. “She is a strange child! I hardly comprehend her! But thou wilt love her dearly, as I do, and wilt advise me how to deal with her” (186). Hester describes her unbalanced feelings and emotions to Dimmesdale. This statement shows that although Pearl’s quirks and oddities cause her to become “strange” in the eyes of others, they form into a love from Hester. This relationship between Hester and Pearl is important because both are ostracized for their irregularities and for the sin and shame of Hester. Dimmesdale responds to Hester’s statement with, “I have long shrunk from children, because they often show distrust- a backwardness to be familiar with me.
Pearl had always been extremely curious about her mother's sin and more importantly about the scarlet letter. All through Pearl's childhood, all she had known was the scarlet letter. She had been infatuated by it ever since she was a baby. Pearl's curiosity about the scarlet letter caused her “inevitable tendency to hover over the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her being”(123). She would constantly belabor her mother about it asking questions such as “what does the scarlet letter mean mother”(124). The scarlet letter had become such a huge part of her life that it had almost become a part of her. It had consumed her life and was the main thing she thought about constantly. In this case, secretiveness from Hester caused major curiosity from
An imp of evil, emblem, product of sin” (103). According to the quote, it can be inferred that Pearl was condemned to have a bad life since the beginning of the novel. She was referred to as an “elf child”, and many times as the offspring of the demon. Children constantly taunted her and put her down, making her react incorrectly. Pearl was taught to live without the approval of of God, because of all she represented. But in the end she overcame everything and she became the richest heiress of in the new world, due to all the land Chillingworth had left for her. Hester’s daughter showed that one can fight off all the bad things in life. According to Hawthorne, in the end she married a man whom which she had a child with. But most importantly, she kept the relationship with her mother strong because she would send her trinkets and letters oftenly (Hawthorne 288).