Pearl Prynne was more than a normal child. In "The Scarlet Letter," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pearl functions more as a symbol than anything else, she symbolizes sin in the Puritan society. She is characterized as “the scarlet letter endowed with life” (Hawthorne 102), meaning that not only does she mimic the embroidered scarlet letter on Hester’s chest but she also represents her mother’s sin of committing adultery. In "The Scarlet Letter," by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Pearl’s embodiment of original sin enables her to transcend the confine of Puritan society exposing its limitations.
Pearl signifies more than the personified version of the scarlet letter but she also characterized as “a symbol of natural liberty” (Daniels), Hester even recognized Pearl’s untamable spirit while she was pregnant: “she could recognize her wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart” (Hawthorne 91). Because Hawthorne portrays her as beauty, freedom, imagination, and all other natural qualities that Puritan society tries to repress, we begin to realize that she is more than just the living and breathing version of the scarlet letter, “the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life!” (Hawthorne 102), but she signifies the freedom and individualism that the Puritan society tries hard to repress.
Pearl also shares a similar beauty to the scarlet letter; the beauty is emphasized when Hester insists on dressing her in red and gold. She is the representation of God’s punishment of Hester and Dimmesdale’s sin, she enforces her mother’s guilt and sometimes Dimmesdale’s also. But Hester’s love for her defiant daughter emphasizes her refusal to disregard her sin thinking that it was evil, even though she believes that her “sin” was caused by love and passion rather than evil and pleasure.
In the n...