The Symbolic Pearl :: essays research papers

Most novels usually have a main symbolisation, which teaches a character, or the reader, a very important lesson or moral. This is true in Nathaniel Hawthornes classic The Scarlet earn, where Hester Prynnes daughter os serves as the most extensive living symbol in the entire novel. She is such(prenominal) more of a symbol than an actual character. ivory symbolizes Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdales concealed fill out affair and plays a key character in The Scarlet Letter as well.Little Pearl, the so-called elf child, is the daughter and result of the minister Arthur Dimmesdale and Hester Prynnes unbelievable sin of adultery. She is an imaginative, intelligent little girl who is full of life and shows a rich and luxuriant beauty a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints. She is a living, breathing child who can see and talk. The only real characteristics that exclude she is an actual person are shown by her emotions she has a very disapproving temper and usually ends u p getting her way by throwing tantrums. For example, in the forest scene, she sees her mothers scarlet letter discarded on the ground, fusses and screams for her to put it fundament down on, which eventually Hester does. Pearl is obviously a definite person, but she is overly a definite symbol of many things. First, she is a distinct symbol of the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. She is a representative of the passion, which came with Hesters sin of adultery. Second, she is an active monitoring device of Hesters sin besides the letter A on her breast. And lastly, Pearl becomes hypnotized by her mothers scarlet letter. She pelts the letter with flowers, covering the mothers breast with hurts for which she could find no unctuousness in this world. Pearls inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter is full developed when Pearl imitates her mother by placing a seaweed letter A on her own breast. But the most important symbol that Pearl reflects i s when they are in the forest. In one of the books most dramatic scenes, Pearl blocks her mothers attempt to escape from her symbol of shame. After Hester has tossed her scarlet letter on the ground, Pearl shrieks in a fit and will not experience or come to her mother until she proceeds to put her letter back on and puts her hair back up under her white cap.