The Living Scarlet Letter
The Living Scarlet LetterThe Living Scarlet Letter
Throughout The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorne uses a variety of symbols, which are significant to the novel. A very important symbol in the novel is Pearl, who is a result of Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin of adultery. Pearl is a constant living reminder to Hester and Dimmesdale of the sin they committed.
Along with wearing the letter “A”, on her chest for the remainder of her life, Hester lives with another punishment. She must live with her daughter, “the scarlet letter in another form.” “She named the infant “Pearl,” as of being of great price,-purchased with all she had,-her mother’s only treasure”(82). Pearl was important to Hester. Without her she would not have been able to survive. When there was talk of Pearl being taken away from Hester, she became very upset. She went to Governor Bellingham’s mansion to beg him to let her keep her daughter. “Had they taken her away from me, I would willingly have gone with thee in the forest and signed my name in the Black Man’s book too, and that with mine own blood!” (107). Pearl is like the rose bush growing outside the prison door. She gives Hester hope. While Pearl served as constant reminder to Hester of her sin, she needed her to survive.
In the beginning of the novel Pearl merely represents the love affair between Hester and Dimmesdale. While Hester stands on the scaffold she recognizes this fact. She resists the temptation to hold Pearl to cover up the “A” on her chest, and she realizes “ . . . one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another”(50). Hester realizes that Pearl will serve to be as much of a punishment as the letter “A.” Every time she looks at her child she will be reminded of Dimmesdale and their love affair together. When Hester was taken back to the jail later in the evening “[the child] seemed to have drank in with it all the turmoil, the anguish and despair, which pervaded the mother’s system”(66). Pearl signifies the agony that Hester had experienced while standing on the scaffold in front of the townspeople. Pearl can sense her mother’s feelings of pain and embarrassment.
Pearl becomes fascinated with the scarlet letter on Hester’s breast, even from the time she is a baby.
One day, as her mother stooped over the cradle, the infant’s eyes had been caught by the glimmering of the gold embroidery about the letter; and putting up her little hand, she grasped at it, smiling not doubtfully, but with a decided gleam, that gave her face the look of a much older child. (88)
As she grows older she constantly questions and comments on the scarlet letter. “What dost the letter mean mother”(165)? Hester is forced to lie about the true meaning of the “A.” She says that she simply wears the Scarlet Letter “ . . . for the sake of the gold-thread”(166). Along with questioning the Scarlet Letter Pearl constantly asks where she came from. Hester’s response is “thy heavenly father sent thee.” (90). However she refuses to believe this by saying “He did not send me! . . . I have no heavenly father!” (90). Pearl is much too smart to believe that. She knows her mother is hiding the identity of her father. This constant questioning of the true meaning of the “A” remindes Hester that she can never escape her sin. What causes Hester even more pain is that Pearl expects to wear the letter “A” when she grows older. The letter has been such a natural part of her life, that she views the wearing of it as “normal.” This upsets Hester quite a bit. Her child thinks that the “A” is a symbol of good, causing her more shame. “I am only a child. It (the sunshine) will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet”(159)! Pearl torments Hester again by placing a seaweed “A” on her own breast mimicking her mothers. “Pearl took some eel-grass, and imitated as best she could, on her own bosom, the decoration with which she was so familiar on her mothers”(163). To see Pearl with an “A” upon her breast upsets Hester greatly.
Pearl perhaps serves as the greatest reminder of Hester’s sin when Hester takes off her cap and the letter while in the forest with Dimmesdale. Pearl threw a fit and insisted that she put her cap back on and that she place the “A” back on her chest. This causes Hester pain, because she not only puts the articles of clothing back on, but with them she brings back her sin and her suffering. For a brief moment Hester had broken free from her wrongdoing, but Pearl quickly reminded her that her sin could never go away. To add to her heartache Pearl kisses her mother and then kisses the scarlet letter. Showing that Pearl will not let her mother forget the sin that she has committed.
Pearl along with being a constant reminder to her mother of her sin, is also a reminder to Dimmesdale. Dimmesdale suffers greatly from seeing Pearl with Hester. He has denied his own flesh and blood. Pearl, who never shows affection for anyone other than her mother, shows an interest in Dimmesdale. From the time when she is an infant on the scaffold she “held up its arms [to Dimmesdale], with a half plaintive murmur”(63). When she is older, and she and her mother meet him in the woods, Pearl questions “Doth he love us? Will he go back with us, hand in hand, we three together, into the town?” (194) These comments make Dimmesdale miserable. Causing him unitentionally to place his hand over his chest. Pearl is a very smart child and knows that Dimmesdale is guilty of sin. She notices that he always places his hand over his heart. When Hester asks Pearl if she knows why she wears the scarlet letter she replies “Truly I do . . . it is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!” (163)
On the scaffold scene in the middle of the novel Pearl asks Dimmesdale if he will stand there united with her and Hester at noon the next day. “Wilt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide”(134)? He responds that he cannot, but someday he will. “Not so, my child. I shall, indeed, stand with thy mother and thee one other day, but not to-morrow!”(134). His guilt builds during this scene as he tells his own daughter that he will not acknowledge her and her mother in front of the townspeople. He is only willing to see them at night or in the forest. He will never be seen with them in daylight or in the town when people are around.
Pearls torment and questioning causes Dimmesdale so much pain that he beats himself in his study with whips. “In Mr. Dimmesdale’s secret closet, under lock and key, there was a bloody scourge”(133). She is always on his conscience. He has become so ashamed of himself for denying Pearl and his sin. He has lied to the townspeople and let down the two people that he cares about most. Eventually all of this pain causes Dimmesdale to confess to the town that he is Pearls father. Once he confessed
Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief in which the wild infant bore her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother too, Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled. (233)
Once Dimmesdale confesses emotion floods out of Pearl. Her presence caused Dimmesdale pain, but in the end caused him to confess and release his guilt to stop his suffering.
Pearl serves as a constant reminder to Hester and Dimmesdale of the sin they committed together. Pearl will never let Hester forget what the scarlet letter on her breast stands for. Along with causing Hester pain, Pearl causes Dimmesdale a lot of grief too. However his suffering is kept a secret. When he looks at his daughter it reminds him that he is a liar and he turned his back on the people that he loved. Pearl symbolizes the “living” scarlet letter not only to her mother but also to her father.