In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter, most characters are created as subjects under Puritan ideals, yet Pearl, the daughter of the women most toiled by the judgements of Puritanism, is the character who is able to defy those ideals. Hawthorne presents Pearl as the antithesis to Puritan values through the various ways her character can be interpreted; these abstract characterizations of Pearl as nature, the scarlet letter itself, and a romantic hero which distinguish her as the world the Puritans tried, but failed, to create and Hawthorne's criticism of this failure.
From the moment she is introduced, Pearl’s character is likened to nature with her “wild-flower prettiness”, and like the circumstances of her birth, the presence of this comparison already sets Pearl deeply …show more content…
In the beginning of the novel, the harshness of Puritan justice is connoted through the nature surrounding the prison door: Hawthorne uses organicism to reflect the convoluted nature of Puritan justice as the “grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation” grows in front of the prison door (36). Yet, on the other side, there is also a “wild rose-bush, covered . . . with its delicate gems” representative of “some sweet moral blossom” (37). Pearl is this “blossom” from the passion of Hester’s sin, and is, therefore, the morality Hawthorne hopes to present against the harsh Puritan morals. Although a central theme of The Scarlet Letter is sin, Hawthorne also highlights the idea of incessant penitence, and Pearl, through her connection with nature, embodies this theme: as she walks through the forest with her mother, Pearl is shown to “[resemble] the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a well-spring as mysterious” (121). Pearl is equated
From the moment she is introduced, Pearl’s character is likened to nature with her “wild-flower prettiness”, and like the circumstances of her birth, the presence of this comparison already sets Pearl deeply …show more content…
In the beginning of the novel, the harshness of Puritan justice is connoted through the nature surrounding the prison door: Hawthorne uses organicism to reflect the convoluted nature of Puritan justice as the “grass-plot, much overgrown with burdock, pig-weed, apple-peru, and such unsightly vegetation” grows in front of the prison door (36). Yet, on the other side, there is also a “wild rose-bush, covered . . . with its delicate gems” representative of “some sweet moral blossom” (37). Pearl is this “blossom” from the passion of Hester’s sin, and is, therefore, the morality Hawthorne hopes to present against the harsh Puritan morals. Although a central theme of The Scarlet Letter is sin, Hawthorne also highlights the idea of incessant penitence, and Pearl, through her connection with nature, embodies this theme: as she walks through the forest with her mother, Pearl is shown to “[resemble] the brook, inasmuch as the current of her life gushed from a well-spring as mysterious” (121). Pearl is equated