Scarlet Letter Character Sketch

Hester Prynne loves Pearl, but also hates her at the same time. It is this sense of ambivalence that witnesses Pearl’s growth and significance throughout The Scarlet Letter. In the beginning, Pearl is described almost like a demonic and inhuman child, causing even Hester to question her origin and kind. “O Father in Heaven- if Thou art still my Father –what is this being which I have brought into the world!” (Page 92) Pearl is Hester’s punishment like the scarlet letter, and indubitably acts as a constant reminder of her sin and guilt, making it nearly impossible for Hester to forget the shame she has to endure. But as the narrative progresses, Hester also reveals the other side of the story, where her love for Pearl makes it difficult to believe that she has done wrong. “Pearl, as being of great price- purchased with all she had –her mother’s only treasure!” (Page 85) suggests how Pearl, like the scarlet letter, is both a blessing and a punishment, yet Hester has willingly paid a price to be a good mother and devotes her whole life to raising the child, which is all that she has left. Her love for Pearl allows her to persevere, albeit the unpropitious situation, illustrating the strength of human vitality and resilience that Pearl instigates in her. “She is my happiness! –she is my torture none the less! 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 for my sin? Ye shall not take her, I will die first!” (page 109) Even Hester herself acknowledges the affiliation between Pearl and the scarlet letter, yet the child is both her happiness and her torture, rousing conflicting emotions within. Pearl has imperceptibly become an invaluable part of Hester’s life and thus making it impossible for them to be separated, no matter what the community elders suggest.

Not only is Pearl the child of Hester Prynne, she also represents a form of conscience within the narrative. Pearl who is the result of an irrevocable crime, becomes the symbol of her mother’s guilt and rebellion, while at the same time also acts as the intuitive voice and the driving force behind Hester’s vitality despite the adverse conditions. Being closely related to the scarlet letter, through the symbolic usage of color, Pearl has been conscious about the existence of the conspicuous letter on her mother’s bosom since infancy. “But that the first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware of was- shall we say it? -the scarlet letter on Hester’s bosom!” (Page 93) Her awareness and connection with the letter proffers another point of view and shed lights on the mysteries in the beginning of the novel. Pearl’s childish innocence provides a difference perspective in a straightforward and bias-free manner, counterbalancing the seemingly inscrutable depths of the truth. “Pearl, that wild and flighty elf, stole softly towards him, and taking his hand in the grasp of both of her own, laid her cheek against it;” (Page 112) The line suggests an almost innate affection that Pearl possesses for Dimmesdale, while she dislikes Chillingworth, as if hinting and foreshadowing what is to come in the story. Pearl not only is Hester’s daughter, but also a protective and intuitive guide that has saved her from the “black man” and the prejudice and injustice of Puritan society. She has the ability “to keep her mother’s soul alive, and to preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her!” (Page 111)

Through the use of symbolic colors, the character of Pearl Prynne and her association with the scarlet letter is emphasized, thus affecting her relationships with those around her and reflecting the triumph of human resilience in the face of prejudice and injustice in society. The contradicting emotions that Hester has for her daughter and the similarities between the two, mold Pearl into the symbolic character of human resilience and vitality that she is in The Scarlet Letter.