The well-known novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is based in the 18th century and is about a woman namged Hester Prynne who has commited adultery against Roger Chillingworth with Arthur Dimmesdale and has a child, Pearl, from it. The story includes her life after the adultery, different connections, and appearences between characters. One of the connections that is significant is between Pearl and her mother’s Scarlet Letter. Throughout the novel, Hawthorne exposes the connection between Pearl and the scarlet letter to remind the reader that the scarlet letter represents Pearl.
The novel is named after the embroided letter “A” on Hester’s chest to symbolize adultery that she commited. Hester married a successful …show more content…
Adultery was a serious crime to commit, because it was against the Bible. People who were criticized most for it were women. Even though Hester thought that Chillingworth was dead, she did not get a divorce before she had intimacy with Dimmesdale. Getting a divorce would not be the best either, because it is against the Bible, but she would not have been put in jail. Not only is this act seen as a crime, it is also seen as a sin. Pearl was born out of sin. When she is seen, she is seen as the product of sin and not as a human being. Pearl is introduced as a child with a strange eerie look to her. There are multiple cases that Hawthorne adresses Pearl as an “elf-child”: “In the afternoon of a certain summer 's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother 's bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter”(73). Her mother, in the beginning of the story, calls her an evil child and she was sent from God as a punishment for her wrong doing:"Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the mother, suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into the world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more thee! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?... that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring: such as, ever since …show more content…
Hester sews and decorates Pearl’s clothes in resemblance of the scarlet letter: “Her mother, in contriving the child 's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread”(92). Her attire has a lot of red fabric with some gold fabric. Hawthorne is teaching the reader that the scarlet letter represents Pearl by showing the reader how her mother sewed the dresses to look like the “A”. Hawthorne also connects the roses in the stor to Pearl: “Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified”(98). Pearl knew that she came from sin because of the history of the rose bush. Before Hester was born, a woman named Anne Hutchison believed that Christianity could be seen in different ways than just the Bible. She started her own belief of Christianity. When the Puritains found out about it, they threw her in jail for her beliefs. Doing what Anne Hutchison did was considered a sin. On her way into the jail, roses grew at her feet as she entered the chamber. Hawthorne adds this in the story to support that the scarlet letter represents Pearl. This is true because just like the rose, the letter is beautiful and the color of deep red. Also there are thorns on the roses. This suggests that even though something is
The novel is named after the embroided letter “A” on Hester’s chest to symbolize adultery that she commited. Hester married a successful …show more content…
Adultery was a serious crime to commit, because it was against the Bible. People who were criticized most for it were women. Even though Hester thought that Chillingworth was dead, she did not get a divorce before she had intimacy with Dimmesdale. Getting a divorce would not be the best either, because it is against the Bible, but she would not have been put in jail. Not only is this act seen as a crime, it is also seen as a sin. Pearl was born out of sin. When she is seen, she is seen as the product of sin and not as a human being. Pearl is introduced as a child with a strange eerie look to her. There are multiple cases that Hawthorne adresses Pearl as an “elf-child”: “In the afternoon of a certain summer 's day, after Pearl grew big enough to run about, she amused herself with gathering handfuls of wild flowers, and flinging them, one by one, at her mother 's bosom; dancing up and down like a little elf whenever she hit the scarlet letter”(73). Her mother, in the beginning of the story, calls her an evil child and she was sent from God as a punishment for her wrong doing:"Hush, Pearl, hush! Thou must not talk so!" answered the mother, suppressing a groan. "He sent us all into the world. He sent even me, thy mother. Then, much more thee! Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?... that poor little Pearl was a demon offspring: such as, ever since …show more content…
Hester sews and decorates Pearl’s clothes in resemblance of the scarlet letter: “Her mother, in contriving the child 's garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play, arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered in fantasies and flourishes of gold thread”(92). Her attire has a lot of red fabric with some gold fabric. Hawthorne is teaching the reader that the scarlet letter represents Pearl by showing the reader how her mother sewed the dresses to look like the “A”. Hawthorne also connects the roses in the stor to Pearl: “Pearl, seeing the rose-bushes, began to cry for a red rose, and would not be pacified”(98). Pearl knew that she came from sin because of the history of the rose bush. Before Hester was born, a woman named Anne Hutchison believed that Christianity could be seen in different ways than just the Bible. She started her own belief of Christianity. When the Puritains found out about it, they threw her in jail for her beliefs. Doing what Anne Hutchison did was considered a sin. On her way into the jail, roses grew at her feet as she entered the chamber. Hawthorne adds this in the story to support that the scarlet letter represents Pearl. This is true because just like the rose, the letter is beautiful and the color of deep red. Also there are thorns on the roses. This suggests that even though something is