Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Nathaniel HawthorneÆs powerful heroine Hester Prynne. Her daughter Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is an enigmatic character serving entirely as a vehicle for symbolism. From her introduction as an infant on her motherÆs scaffold of shame to the stormy zenith of the story, Pearl is an empathetic and improbably intelligent child. Throughout the story she absorbs the hidden emotions of her mother and magnifies them for all to see, and asks questions nothing but a childÆs innocence permit her to ask, allowing Hawthorne to weave rich detail into The Scarlet Letter without making the story overly narrative. Pearl is the purest embodiment of literary symbolism. She is at times a vehicle for Hawthorne to express the irrational and translucent qualities of Hester and DimmesdaleÆs illicit bond at times, and at others a forceful reminder of her motherÆs sin. Pearl Prynne is her motherÆs most precious possession and her only reason to live, but also a priceless treasure purchased with her life. PearlÆs strange beauty and deeply enigmatic qualities make her the most powerful symbol some feel Hawthorne ever created.
The product of HesterÆs sin and agony, Pearl was a painfully constant reminder of her motherÆs violation of the Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. Hester herself felt that Pearl was given to her not only as a blessing but a punishment worse than death or ignominy. She is tormented by her daughterÆs childish teasing and endless questioning about the scarlet ôAö and itÆs relation to Minister Dimmesdale and his maladies. After Pearl has created a letter ôAö on her own breast out of seaweed, she asks her mother:
But in good earnest, now, mother
dear, what does this scarlet letter
mean? -- and why dost thou wear
it on thy bosom? -- and why does
the minister keep his hand over
his heart?
In saying this Pearl implies that she knows much, much more about the scarlet letter than she lets on. Throughout the conversation Pearl is impish and teasing, saying one thing and contradicting it soon after. She refuses to say just what she means, which makes it hard for Hester to give a straight reply. Hester is shocked that her playful daughter has lead their conversation to the topic of the scarlet letter, and even more disturbed that she has assumed HesterÆs letter and DimmesdaleÆs habit of pressing his hand to his heart branch from the same issue. Pearl, in bringing this forbidden and painful subject about, unwittingly inflicts agony upon her hapless mother. Hester cannot tell her daughter what has passed between the minister and herself and come clean. Pearl symbolizes a hidden part of her mother that has not, and will never be exposed and therefore washed free of sin. Pearl was always drawn to the öAö, and seemed to twist the symbolic knife in HesterÆs bosom every time she thought she was free of her weighty burden of sin by flippantly reminding her of the letter and the meaning it bore. PearlÆs questioning wrenched HesterÆs heart when the child seemed to somehow know about the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. PearlÆs precocity worried Hester constantly. Hester Prynne herself realized that Pearl was unlike other children, and prayed that she was not sin incarnate. When Hester finally freed herself of her sin and removed the scarlet letter after years of itÆs leaden weight on her chest, it was little Pearl who brought the reality of her eternal condemnation back to Hester with a stinging blow. She was ôthe scarlet letter endowed with lifeö. Pearl represented the part of Hester to be always dulled by the searing judgment of others in that she was HesterÆs ceaseless reminder of the sin she had committed, but also symbolized everything about Hester that was free and alive.
Pearl is the only happiness in Hester PrynneÆs lonely life. Without a child to care for, teach, and love, Hester would have long ago given her soul and life over to evil. When town authorities, shocked at PearlÆs apparent belief that she was plucked from a rose bush and not created by God, recommend she be taken from Hester and placed in a school, Hester responds with the following:
ôGod gave me this child!... She is
my happiness, she is my torture
none the less! Pearl keeps me here
in life!...Ye shall not take her! I
will die first!ö
Pearl, though Hester understands that she was God-given as a constant reminder or her sin, is her only requited love and a friend that does not judge her by things past. Later, Hester comments that she would have ôsigned my name in the Black ManÆs book too, and that with mine own blood!ö if they had taken Pearl from her. Her daughter is her only earthly salvation, as well as her only friend. Pearl is a blessing upon Hester in that her light-heartedness and seeming innocence allow her mother to forget about her troubles and (to use a Calvin Klein clichΘ) simply BE. To see Pearl playing on the beach and creating a fascinating world of her own is to allow Hester to momentarily throw off the shackles imposed on her by Puritan society and be truly happy.
Another important symbol that makes up Pearl is her significance as HesterÆs only tie to Minister Dimmesdale, her partner in adultery. Pearl is imbued with an unearthly knowledge about the bond between her mother and the Minister. While this, in itself, frightens Hester, Pearl is all that she has of Dimmesdale and she treasures the girl for that. She is the one who repeatedly demands that he hold hands with Hester and herself in public and recognize them. Of course, this is the only thing that Dimmesdale CAN do to save himself from the misery of guilt, which only goes further to show that Pearl symbolizes the deep nexus between Hester and the Minister.
The Scarlet Letter is overflowing with masterfully wrought symbolism and representation, but Pearl Prynne is the purest and deepest symbol in the story. She was born not only out of utter sin, but out of the deepest and most absolute love imaginable. She serves as a messenger of GodÆs salvation through pain, and as a symbol of all that is blissful and content in Hester PrynneÆs life. In the end, it is Pearl who kisses Arthur Dimmesdale as he lies dying on the scaffold, having admitted his sin. She breaks a spell that had lain over the dyad in adultery and herself - the product of their sin - , completing her service as a symbol of pain and hardship, but more importantly a symbol of love, salvation, and the deep bond between two lovers condemned by the strict decorum of the Puritan days.
