Consequences of Human Desire in the Scarlet Letter
Consequences of Human Desire in the Scarlet Letter
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, many of the characters suffer from the tolls of sin, but none as horribly as Hester’s daughter, Pearl. Throughout the novel, Pearl is a symbol of the sin that her mother has committed, and also suffers from this sin. Pearl is portrayed as an offspring of vice, and is even characterized as demonic by her mother. The austere Puritan society isolates Pearl, causing animosity between her and the other Puritan children. Pearl is conceived in sin, is a constant reminder to Hester of the sin she has committed, and suffers along with her mother.
Hester impresses her feelings of guilt onto Pearl, the reminder of her sin. Pearl has always had an attachment to the scarlet letter on her mother’s bosom. As an infant, Peal reached up and grabbed the scarlet letter, causing “Hester Prynne to clutch the fatal token…So infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl’s baby-hand” (Hawthorne 88). Every time that Hester sees Pearl, she is reminded of her sin and questions the permanent symbol of her sin in Pearl: “what is this being, which I have brought into this world!” Hester even asks “Child, what art thou?” as Pearl throws flowers at her mother “dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter”(89). This is implying that Hester often saw Pearl as something other than a human child when Pearl constantly reminds her of her sin.
Pearl is not only a symbol of the sin Hester committed, but she is often described as a living scarlet letter. The ordinary attire of a Puritan society were plain, gray or black clothes, however Hester dresses Pearl extravagantly, “arraying her in a crimson-velvet tunic abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread” (93). These clothes, with abundant embroidery are much like the crimson scarlet letter Hester wears. Pearl becomes no more than a manifestation based entirely on Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin; a living symbol to remind both Hester and Dimmesdale of their sin. Pearl is described as “the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (70)
Hester often views Pearl’s existence as a demon sent to make her suffer. Hawthorne discusses that at times Hester is “feeling that her penance might best be wrought out by this unutterable pain”(67). She...