536 Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Hester and Dimmesdale must grapple with their
sin, Pearl reminds readers that both Hester and
Dimmesdale are parents who bear an obligation to
their child. From the second chapter, the novel links
Pearl and the scarlet “A” that Hester wears; both are
“token[s] of [Hester’s] shame.” Hester emphasizes
this connection by dressing Pearl in scarlet and
gold, and the novel frequently reminds readers
that Pearl is the scarlet letter in human form. Like
her dress, Pearl’s behavior also sets her apart. Pearl
is impish and capricious; she is the “wild infant,”
the “elf-child.” Many in Puritan Boston attribute
Pearl’s wild and uncivil behavior to her parent-
age. Hester remembered “talk of the neighbouring
townspeople; who, seeking vainly elsewhere for the
child’s paternity, and observing some of her odd
attributes, had given out that poor little Pearl was a
demon offspring.” Because of such fears, the Puri-
tan magistrates of Boston propose to take the child
from Hester.
In the face of this challenge to “a mother’s
rights,” Hester mounts an argument to maintain
custody of her child. She claims that her punish-
ment has made her a better mother: “This badge
hath taught me . . . lessons whereof my child may be
the wiser and better, albeit they can profit nothing
to myself.” Perhaps a stronger argument for Hester’s
custody of Pearl can be found in the benefits that
motherhood holds for Hester. Pearl becomes a kind
of savior for her mother. Pearl’s name tells some-
thing of Hester’s feelings for her daughter and her
thoughts about motherhood: “she had named the
infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price,—purchased
with all she had,—her mother’s only treasure!” As
she grows, Pearl is Hester’s “sole treasure” and “all
her world.” As Hester faces the magistrates, she
emphasizes the connection between Pearl and the
scarlet letter, arguing that while humanity had
marked her with the scarlet “A” as a result of her
sin, God had given Pearl to her. Pearl, she argues, is
her salvation:
God gave me the child! . . . He gave her, in
requital of all things else, which ye had taken
from me. 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 isthe scarlet letter, only capable of being loved,
and so endowed with a million-fold the
power of retribution for my sin?Hester’s “unquiet elements” were “soothed away by
the softening influences of maternity,” and Pearl
keeps Hester connected to the world around her. As
Hester leaves Governor Bellingham’s mansion, his
sister, a reputed witch, asks Hester to travel with her
to the forest to meet with the devil. Hester replies,
“I must tarry at home, and keep watch over my little
Pearl. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly
have gone with thee into the forest,” to which the
narrator replies, “Even thus early had the child saved
her from Satan’s snare.”
Once the magistrates decide that Pearl should
remain with Hester, Mr. Wilson asserts that “every
good Christian man hath a title to show a father’s
kindness to the poor, deserted babe.” It seems,
though, that the elf-child cannot be made fully
human without paternal influence. In her meetings
with Reverend Dimmesdale, Pearl seems instinc-
tively to understand their familial ties, and she
challenges the minister to acknowledge their rela-
tionship publicly. As Dimmesdale, Hester, and
Pearl stand together on the scaffold under the
cover of night, Pearl asks, “Wilt thou stand here
with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?” It is
not until the novel’s second-to-last chapter that
Dimmesdale publicly acknowledges his relationship
with Hester and Pearl. As he once again stands on
the scaffold, the minister asks Pearl to kiss him,
and with that kiss, the narrator says, “A spell was
broken. . . . and as her tears fell upon her father’s
cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow
up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do
battle with the world, but be a woman in it.” The
novel’s conclusion gives evidence that Pearl marries,
becomes a mother herself, and remains mindful of
her mother even after Hester returns to her seaside
cottage in Boston.
Laurie A. SterlingreliGion in The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter examines and critiques the theo-
cratic society of Puritan Boston, in which “religion
and law were almost identical.” Hawthorne begins