Pearls can be Convincing
Uploaded by Monquie on Jan 27, 2004
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Pearl as a symbol of the scarlet letter
"A." He also uses Pearl as a device to make Hester and Reverend Dimmesdale accept their sin of
Adultery. Pearl achieves this by making Dimmesdale confess to the town that he has committed this sin and also by making her mother see that she is not as bad a sinner as she believes. When the Puritans look at Hester and Pearl, they think that Pearl is a child of the devil and think she is a black-hearted girl because she is the result of a sin, so she starts acting like she’s the devil’s child by throwing stones at other children and things of that nature.
Pearl thinks Hester and Dimmesdale are evil too. She wants Hester to accept her sin and
stop acting like she’s the worst person in the world. Pearl also wants Dimmesdale to act like her father all the time, not just in secret by himself.
Hester wants to keep Pearl and says that Pearl “keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold the power of retribution of my sin?”(Pg. 109). She also says that Pearl is the living part of her letter and causes her more pain than the letter itself, but Pearl is only difficult when she sees her mother trying to get away from her sin, and so she makes her mother continue to wear the letter.
Hester doesn’t think she is a good person because of her sin, but she will keep feeling that
way until she accepts her sins and the fact that she made a mistake. She wants to run away from the situation and live with Dimmesdale contently as an offender with another offender and leave her
transgression behind. Pearl will not let that happen because she knows that by leaving, Hester will leave her sins in the past and keep feeling as though she is a bad person, even though she isn’t if she would just accept the fact. Hester talks of leaving with Dimmesdale “Let it suffice, that the clergyman resolved to flee, and not alone…” then Dimmesdale says, “But now—since I am irrevocably doomed—wherefore should I not snatch the solace allowed to the...