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Pearl: A Reflection of Hester

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is full of symbols. One of the biggest

symbols used by Hawthorne is Pearl. Since the author has chosen to write this piece in

third person, the reader cannot always tell what Hester is thinking about at any one

moment. Therefore, throughout the book, Pearl is always found by Hester’s side because

Pearl is used to reflect some of Hester’s deepest emotions—emotions Hester might not

even admit she has herself. By watching Pearl, the reader can gain a deeper insight into

Hester’s psyche and can see the growth of Hester’s character throughout the book.

From the beginning of the story, Hester has been marked by her sin and it is

because of this sin that mother and child are connected together in such a unique way.

Even as a baby, Pearl was branded by Hester’s sin in the eyes of the town’s people. In the

second chapter, “The Market-Place”, even Hester starts to associate her child with sin

when she wants to hold her child in front of herself to hide the scarlet letter, but then

comes to the conclusion that “one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide

another” (Hawthorne 39). It is with this view of Pearl, as an extension of her mother’s

sin, which the reader begins to see the foundation of Pearl’s symbolism of Hester.

Later, after Hester’s three-hour ordeal on the scaffold, the reader sees Pearl

becoming severely agitated and sick, reflecting Hester’s “turmoil”, “anguish”, and

“despair” (Hawthorne 50). On the surface, none of these emotions are seen in Hester.

Instead, the reader sees Hester “in a state of nervous excitement”, which she uses to quell

the “mortal agony which [she] had borne throughout the day” (Hawthorne 50).

The next time the reader sees Pearl, she is no longer a baby, but three years old.

Even now, Hester continuously links her child with her sin, constantly looking “into the
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child’s expanding nature; ever dreading to detect some dark and wild peculiarity, that

should correspond with the guiltiness to which [Pearl] owed her being” (Hawthorne 62).

Even three years later, the town sees Pearl as an outcast like her mother, and as an

“emblem and product of sin, [who] had no right among christened infants” (Hawthorne

65) and thus “Pearl is alienated from the community because of her mother's sin” (Harper

60).

Even in the way Pearl is dressed, she symbolizes her mother and the sin she

carries. Although Hester is described in the beginning as being a stunningly beautiful

woman, that beauty is hidden throughout most of the book behind dull, plain dresses and

headscarves. It is only through Pearl’s free flowing hair, pretty face and extravagant

clothes that the reader knows that Hester’s beauty had not disappeared completely, but is

now being expressed through Pearl. The clothes Hester makes for Peral is another thing

that connects her to her mother’s sin. The letter ‘A’ that Hester wears is made of a scarlet

material and is elaborately embroidered with gold thread and, likewise, Pearl is often

seen wearing elaborate crimson and scarlet dresses embroidered with flourishes of gold

thread. Thus, Pearl becomes “the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed

with life!” (Hawthorne 70). However, she is not “the ‘living emblem’ of Hester's guilt [. .

.] because she resembles the scarlet letter, but rather because she embodies what the letter

can only represent—the very passions which motivate Hester's transgression, and the

sufferings that accompany her punishment” (Nudelman 193).

In the chapter entitled “Pearl”, the reader becomes familiar with Hester’s

personality through the budding personality of Pearl. On the surface, Pearl only seems to

be a child without any morals or values. However, there is one rule that Pearl follows: Be
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true to thy self. If Pearl were not the passionate, wild and defiant child that she is, “and if,

in any of her changes, she had grown fainter or paler, she would have ceased to be

herself;—it would have been no longer Pearl!” (Hawthorne 63). By understanding this,

the reader can now understand why Hester committed adultery in the first place. To

Hester, “her love was not sinful because it was not disloyal to her evil husband (whom

she had never loved) or to the traditional morality (in which she had never believed)”

(Carpenter 295). Therefore, if Hester had denied her love for Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale,

she would not have been true to herself. Pearl’s disregard for rules is also introduced in

this chapter, and even though Hester tries to impose a strict discipline on Pearl, it has

little or no affect on her. The reader sees through Pearl, Hester’s disregard towards the

town’s laws against adultery. Even though Hester knew that the town would discipline

her for her crime, it did not dissuade her from committing it. Likewise, the reader rarely

sees Pearl sorry for any rule that she has broken. Therefore, Pearl never reflects her

mother’s guilt because Hester—even though she is forced to wear the Scarlet letter

—“never repented of her ‘sin’ of passion, because she never recognized it as such”

(Carpenter 294).

Hester is only guilty in the eyes of the town. It is because the town’s people

believe her to be a sinner that she is punished. Throughout the book, the town’s people

inflict their petty vengeance and cruelty upon Hester, never letting her forget her position.

Hester never once responds to these vindictive verbal attacks, instead quietly accepts

their condemnation. Even the children, who only had a vague idea from their parents that

there was something horrible about Hester, would shout obscenities at her. In Pearl,

however, a different side of Hester is shown. Although Hester cannot outwardly express
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her anger at the town’s people, Pearl can and does. During Pearl’s first encounters with

other Puritan children, Pearl grows “positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up

stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations” (Hawthorne 65). Even when

Pearl plays games by herself, she transforms—in her mind—the ugliest weeds in the

garden into the Puritan children “whom Pearl smote down and uprooted, most

unmercifully” (Hawthorne 66). Knowing that Pearl reflects Hester’s emotions, the reader

can “see in her game something more than childish imagination” (Waggoner 317). Later

on, when the children decide it would be fun to fling mud at the mother and daughter,

Pearl becomes furious. When stomping her foot and shaking her hand threateningly

doesn’t work, she fearlessly runs at them, scaring them off with the power of her rage.

Shortly after this last incident, another type of confrontation takes place. The

town’s people are trying to decide whether or not Pearl should remain under Hester’s

guardianship. The question that this scene brings up is: Can two people, who are so

closely connected that they are more like one person than two, be separated? Faced with

their possible separation, Hester becomes very distressed and pronounces that she would

die first before they could take Pearl. The answer to the above question is postponed

when Mr. Dimmesdale steps forward and prevents the separation. Again, the reader sees

Pearl express emotions that Hester cannot when Pearl shows Mr. Dimmesdale the love

that Hester cannot express for preventing their separation. Even though we do not find

out whether it is possible to separate Hester and Pearl, this scene does serve as a

foreshadowing of what will come.

Even though the reader briefly sees Hester’s love for Mr. Dimmesdale when he

stood up for her against the governor, this is not the only emotion Hester feels about him.
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At one point, while Hester and Pearl are walking past the window of Mr. Dimmesdale

and Roger Chillingworth—Hester’s husband who is intent on revenge against Pearl’s

father—Pearl begins to attach burrs along the scarlet letter that her mother wears. By

placing the burrs along the scarlet letter, Pearl is expressing Hester’s pain at wearing it.

Then, unexpectedly, Pearl throws one of the burrs at Mr. Dimmesdale, simultaneously

expressing Hester’s anger at him for not coming forward and accepting his part in their

scandal, as well as attaching some of the blame to him. Predictably, Mr. Dimmesdale

shrinks back from accepting both the blame and the burr.

The reader sees Hester’s feelings towards Mr. Dimmesdale during their midnight

vigil upon the scaffold. Here, Pearl continuously asks him if he would stand with them

again on the scaffold at noon the next day. Although Pearl, and thus Hester, does not get

angry when Mr. Dimmesdale refuses to stand on the scaffold the next day, Pearl does

betray—with her constant questioning—how much Hester wants Mr. Dimmesdale to

come forward and admit his part in their sin.

It is during this scene that another important symbol is brought into play. A

meteor streaks across the sky and leaves behind it “the appearance of an immense letter,

—the letter A,—marked out in the lines of dull red” (Hawthorne 107). This ‘A’

obviously represents the one Hester wears. However, the next day, the reader finds that

the town’s people, who witnessed the phenomenon, did not immediately associate it with

the one Hester wears. Instead, they interpreted it as a good omen and thus hinting at the

fact that maybe the scarlet letter that Hester wears isn’t so bad after all, that perhaps she

has been punished enough and has repented her sin. After this foreshadowing event, the

reader finds out that the town’s people no longer view Hester as such a terrible person
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and are beginning to acknowledge her good qualities as well. The town’s people are even

contemplating letting Hester remove the scarlet letter! Pearl reinforces the fact that the

scarlet letter might not be a bad thing anymore when she places an ‘A’ made out of

seaweed on her chest. Later, when Pearl continuously asks Hester “What does the A

mean?”, she could actually be asking, “What does the ‘A’ mean now?” If the question is

looked at from this angle, the reader must reevaluate whether the scarlet letter still

represents a bad thing or if that stigma has finally worn off.

Perhaps it is because of this acknowledgement that Hester has possibly repented

her sin that Hester decides it is her duty to warn Mr. Dimmesdale of Chillingworth’s true

identity and intent. When Pearl feels remorse for accidentally breaking a bird’s wing, the

reader is shown Hester’s remorse at not telling Mr. Dimmesdale sooner about

Chillingworth and thus—without meaning to—letting Mr. Dimmesdale suffer under

Chillingworth’s revenge just like Pearl’s bird suffered a broken wing. Shortly after the

episode with the bird, but before Hester’s meeting with Mr. Dimmesdale, Pearl asks

Hester what the meaning of the scarlet letter is and why Mr. Dimmesdale keeps his hand

over his heart. Hester has always believed that Pearl was sent to her as a sign of “justice

and retribution” (Hawthorne 123) and now Hester thinks that if she answers Pearl’s

questions, she really could be forgiven for her sin. However, at the last minute, Hester

decides “No! If this be the price of the child’s sympathy, I cannot pay it!” (Hawthorne

123). She also decides that, even though she has done a lot of good deeds in repentance

for her sin, “that no matter what good she performed she did not hope for salvation”

(Harper 54). Again, this is foreshadowing that Hester will never be forgiven for her sin,

yet does this mean that Pearl will likewise never be forgiven for a sin she didn’t commit?
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Many would argue that if Pearl really were just another part of Hester, then of

course Pearl would always be associated with Hester’s sin. However, Pearl is not a

complete reflection of Hester; Pearl only reveals one side of her. Pearl represents what

Hester would be like if Hester existed “on the natural plane [of reality] only, as a

creature” (Waggoner 321) with no moral values at all. The Hester the reader knows exists

on the moral plane of reality as well as the natural one. Although Hester does not value

the morals of society, she does have her own rules that she follows. Some might question

that Hester really does exist in the moral plan, however it is Hester herself who proves

her existence on the moral plane when she exclaims:

“O Arthur . . . forgive me! In all things else, I have striven to be

true! Truth was the one virtue to which I might have held fast, and did

hold fast through all extremity; save when thy good . . . were put in

question! Then I consented to deception. But a lie is never good, even

though death threaten on the other side.” (Hawthorne 132)

Hester exists in the moral and natural plane of existence while Pearl exists solely in the

natural one. Therefore, the part of Hester that exists on the natural plane can be connected

to Pearl and it is because of this that conflict is seen in the chapter titled “The Child at the

Brook-Side”. Before this chapter, Mr. Dimmesdale and Hester had decided to run away

together. Even though she will no longer be marked by the scarlet letter if she runs away,

Hester has admitted that she has sinned just because she acknowledges there was

something to run away from. By doing this, Hester completely transcends into the moral

plane, utterly separating herself from her child that exists solely in the natural one. When

Pearl returns from playing in the woods, she finds that she has been completely separated
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from her mother. The brook that lies between the two symbolically represents this. With

this separation, Pearl can no longer reflect her mother’s emotions, and thus the reader

sees Pearl’s own emotions for the first time. The fact the Pearl’s own emotions are being

shown here is reinforced by Pearl’s reflection of herself—not her mother—in the brook.

Pearl, who has always been connected and affected by her mother’s sin, now finds that

this sin, while no longer connected to her at the moment, is still affecting her life. It is

because of this sin that Pearl finds herself alone and separated from the one person who

was a constant in her life—her mother. Pearl becomes furious at this realization and

begins her child-like temper tantrum. It is not until Hester reluctantly returns the scarlet

letter to her bosom that Pearl miraculously ceases her passionate outcries. At this point,

Pearl again becomes a reflection of Hester and the reader is given yet another insight into

what Hester has been thinking. When Pearl reacts rudely to Mr. Dimmesdale, Pearl

shows that Hester is still upset that he refuses to acknowledge his sin in front of the town

and stand on the scaffold with them.

Only once more does the reader see Pearl reflecting Hester’s inner emotions

before the conclusion of the book. During Mr. Dimmesdale’s election sermon, and

shortly before the trio’s planned escape from the town, “Pearl [. . .] betrayed, by the very

dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of

Hester’s brow” (Hawthorne 154), showing through Pearl, Hester’s excitement at the

prospect of leaving the town. An excitement that Hester herself cannot show. However,

the planned escape never comes to pass. Instead, at the last instant, Mr. Dimmesdale

decides to go together with Hester and Pearl upon the scaffold and reveal his sin to the

entire town. It is with this revelation that the connection between mother and daughter is
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broken and the part of Hester that exists on the natural plane now resides in Pearl, who

finally becomes a person of her own. Here, she is finally able to express her own

emotions—not her mother’s—towards her father.

In the fall of this climax, many things happen. Mr. Dimmesdale dies, and within a

year after that, Chillingworth—who can no longer be sustained by his revenge against

Mr. Dimmesdale—dies too. Hester and Pearl leave the town for a while when Pearl

inherits a small fortune from Chillingworth. Hester later returns—alone—to the town

where her sin was committed, to live out the rest of her days wearing the scarlet letter.

Not even in death, is Hester freed from her sin, since even her tombstone warns of her

scarlet letter. It is later said that Pearl now resided elsewhere in some unknown town or

city. It is only Pearl, who never sinned in the first place, who is finally free of the sin and,

with Chillingworth’s money, is able to become a respectable person in the eyes of

society.
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Literature Cited

Carpenter, Frederic I. “Scarlet A Minus.” Eds. Seymoor Gross, Sculley Bradley, et al.

291-300.

Harper, Preston. “Puritan works, salvation, and the quest for community in the “Scarlet

Letter’.” Theology Today. April 2000: 51-65.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. 3rd ed. Ed. Beatty, Bradley, et al. New York:

Norton, 1988.

Nudelman, Franny. “ ‘Emblem and Product of Sin’: The Poisoned Child in The Scarlet

Letter and Domestic Advice Literature.” Yale Journal of Criticism 10 (1997):

193-213.

Waggoner, Hyatt Howe. “Three Orders: Natural, Moral, and Symbolic.” Eds. Seymoor

Gross, Sculley Bradley, et al. 315-24.