Hester’s daughter, Pearl, functions primarily as a symbol. She is quite young during most of the events of this novel-when Dimmesdale dies she is only seven years old-and her real importance lies in her ability to provoke the adult characters in the book. She asks them pointed questions and draws their attention, and the reader’s, to the denied or overlooked truths of the adult world. In general, children in The are portrayed as more perceptive and more honest than adults, and Pearl is the most perceptive of them all. At the first of Pearl’s role in the story, it appears as though someone so grounded in her beliefs, spiritual and mental, would never be dynamic in character. However, that is not the case.
This character analysis will explain the life of Pearl, and what she meant to other roles of The Scarlet Letter. The setting is the early 1600’s in a newly founded Puritan colony. Hester moves to America before her husband Chillingworth, and commits adultery with the minister of the colony, Mr. Dimmesdale.
Hester is punished by an embroidered red “A” on the breast of her dress. She is led to the scaffold for embarrassment before the people. When Hester is led to the scaffold, she held Pearl, her daughter and result of her sin, really close because she loves her; Pearl is the only person that she has at this point. The reason that she named her Pearl is because she was “of a great price.” Pearl hides behind her mother because she is scared and doesn’t know what to think about the situation. She and her mom lived alone in the small colony. She touches the scarlet letter, but little does she know that she is the reason for the punishment.
They are social outcasts, so they don’t leave their house much. Pearl plays alone and has best friends that are imaginary. She distrusts her own imaginary friends for the same reason that she distrusts all the Puritans in the colony. People treat Hester and Pearl differently than everyone else is treated. She only loves Hester, because Hester spends time with her and is a good mother. She plays with her and teaches her Bible stories.
Pearl knows the whole catechism at the age of three, but refuses to say it to anyone. She is smarter than everyone thinks she is. Chillingworth speaks to Pearl about the scarlet letter. He asked her if she knew the reason why her mother must wear the scarlet letter all the time.
She replies, “Yes, that is the same reason why the preacher holds his hand over his heart.” Pearl asks her mom all the time the reason why she wears the scarlet letter and why the preacher holds his hand over his heart. She knows that they both do, but she doesn’t know why. Hester tells her that she wears it because of the pretty gold thread, but she doesn’t know the minister’s reason. Later in the story, Dimmesdale, Hester, and Pearl meet in the forest, and Hester rips the scarlet letter off. Pearl gets mad then, because she knows that her mother is supposed to wear it. Dimmesdale kisses Pearl, but she washes the kiss off with water from the brook.
A Holiday comes, and Dimmesdale avoids Hester and Pearl. Pearl doesn’t understand why Dimmesdale kisses her in the forest, but doesn’t want to have anything to do with her and her mom in public. Not many days after that, Dimmesdale dies shortly after preaching a sermon, and Pearl kisses him and accepts him as her father. Dimmesdale, her real father, is the first person other than her mother that she learns to love. Shortly after, Chillingworth gives Pearl all the land that he had, and she became very rich – an heiress of the land. Pearl makes us constantly aware of her mother’s scarlet letter and of the society that produced it.
From an early age, she fixates on the emblem. Pearl’s innocent, or perhaps intuitive, comments about the letter raise crucial questions about its meaning. Similarly, she inquires about the relationships between those around her-most importantly, the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale-and offers perceptive critiques of them. Pearl provides the text’s harshest, and most penetrating, judgment of Dimmesdale’s failure to admit to his adultery. Once her father’s identity is revealed, Pearl is no longer needed in this symbolic capacity; at Dimmesdale’s death she becomes fully ‘human,’ leaving behind her otherworldliness and her preternatural vision.