Pearl

Pearl

In the novel The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorn Hester's daughter, Pearl, functions primarily as a symbol. She is quite young during most of the events of this novel; at the beginning

she is only a infant then we return to her at three and finally at seven. Her real importance lies in her ability to provoke the adult characters and this gives her the name Imp child during the novel. Pearl is also a burden and gift to her mother, which is why is called Pearl which comes from the Bible \"the pearl of great price.\" Pearl is also fascinated with the letter of shame that her mother wears.

Pearl is first off a symbol in this novel for many reasons. Her name to begin with was a symbol that her mother, Hester, had given here which had came from the Bible. It means that she is a gift from a very harsh and hard price, which was the adultery that she committed

to bring Pearl into the world. Also this makes her the living symbol of Hester\'s sin, and this constantly reminds her mother of her sin. The letter is also represented in Pearl twice: once in her costume, which Hester has intentionally designed to resemble the letter, "lavishing many of morbid ingenuity, to create an analogy between the object of her affection, and the emblem of her guilt and torture" (102). And second just in her being, it tells us this throughout the story that Hester sees the sin that she committed

in Pearl all the time like in this quote "it was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life" (102).

Pearl best trait is her ability to get under the skin of the adults throughtout this book. She is always full of questions that make her mother uncomfortable, which are mostly about the letter itself. Once, when Pearl is pelting the letter with wildflowers, Hester says "Child,