The child also sometimes behaves as if she is possessed. Perhaps this is because she is being raised as a "little adult" by her mother. As an only child, she often seems much older than her real age, and this can also seem like she is possessed by an adult to the people around her. These actions frighten both her mother and the townspeople, creating the idea that she is somehow dark and terrifying in their minds. Other critics have also confirmed Pearl's darker side, noting that Hawthorne uses her as a symbol of the darker, devilish spirit the townspeople fear. Critic Alfred Reid writes, "The character of Pearl likewise exemplifies Hawthorne's tendency to allegorize spiritual phenomena" (Reid 117). Like most people, they see what they see and make it into something they want to believe. Pearl is different, and so she must be evil. It is clear she is not really evil, but she is frightening, at least to some, and that leads to even more ostracizing by the townspeople. So again, Pearl is affected by her mother's sin, and has to pay the price of the people ignoring her and having no friends or acquaintances.
All of the themes surrounding Pearl's character show she is caught in the middle between many undercurrents that she cannot possibly understand. She does not know how to act "normally," because she has no friends or anyone else to tell her what is wrong in society. She has no friends, no father, and no other advice from outside the cottage where they live. Her father will not even acknowledge that she is his child. When he finally does acknowledge her, he then promptly dies, leaving her even more alone and confused. She never gets to experience the joy of a loving father, and her mother is so often upset or depressed it was difficult or impossible Pearl to know how to act like other children around her. And so, she becomes a child of the devil, or an "elf-child" as Hawthorne sometimes names her.
Another aspect of Pearl and her character is extremely important, and that is that she is allowed to stay with her mother throughout the book. Critic Reid feels Hawthorne does this not only to symbolize her mother's sin, but to show the two united against the town that ostracizes them. He writes, "Hawthorne has Hester keep her baby with her throughout the punishment for its symbolical import. With the 'winking baby in her arms' and the ignominious scarlet letter sewed to her bosom, she walks through the marketplace" (Reid 15). Thus, Pearl inadvertently becomes a symbol...
As written in the novel, can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!" In the side of Dimmesdale, on the other hand, the effect of the sin he committed is perhaps stronger and more painful than Hester's because the bad effects caused by his sin were not instigated by the people around him, but by himself. Being a minister, Dimmesdale was known in his community as a
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Nathaniel Hawthorne was an Eighteenth Century American author who through his works explored the subject of human sin, punishment and guilt. In fact, themes of pride, guilt, sin, punishment and evil is evident in all of his works, and the wrongs committed by his ancestors played a particular dominant force in Hawthorne's literary career, such as his most famous piece, "The Scarlet Letter" (Nathaniel Pp). Hawthorne and other writers of
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Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter and the Minister's Black Veil Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864, is considered one of the great masters of American fiction, with tales and novels that reflect deep explorations of moral and spiritual conflicts (Hawthorne pp). He descended from a prominent Puritan family, and when he was fourteen years old, he and his widowed mother moved to a remote farm in Maine (Hawthorne pp). Hawthorne attended
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