How does pearl imitate her mother

How are the magistrates convinced to let Hester keep Pearl? The magistrates are convinced by Dimmesdale. When Hester realizes that they are serious about taking Pearl away, she appeals to Dimmesdale to speak on her behalf since he was in charge of her spiritual life. He tells the magistrates that Hester is both a good thing and bad thing.

He supports this claim by saying that while there are negatives, Pearl keeps Hester from sinning more than she already has, which appeals to the magistrates. When the governor asks Pearl who made her, she responded that she was taken from the rose bush by the prison door. What is the symbolism in this answer? This is related to the rose bush being the one source of hope and redemption in the area around the prison door.

Dimmesdale has changed both physically and spiritually. On the physical change side of things, his health has greatly deteriorated and is present in all of his features. He is now extremely thin and pale and often puts his hand on his chest in pain. On the spiritual change side of things, he is suddenly willing to stand up for Hester, and does so vehemently.

What dual role does Dimmesdale say Pearl plays? How old is Pearl now? Pearl is now three years old. The townspeople are of the opinion that Dimmesdale is falling ill because he is working too hard and putting too much focus into his religious life.

They also believe that if he dies, then it will be because the world was no longer good enough for him to live on. Dimmesdale, on the other hand, believes that his illness stems as a punishment from God because he is no longer good enough to live on Earth as a religious teacher. What finally persuades him to accept his offer? Describe the relationship between Chillingworth and Dimmesdale. Because of this, they spend hours upon hours in conversation. But, while Chillingworth seems to be helping Dimmesdale, he is actually sucking the life out of him more and more like a leech would.

Some people in the community feel that God has sent Chillingworth to heal their minister, but others have a different view. What is this second view? This second view is that Chillingworth is the incarnation of Satan that was sent to tempt Dimmesdale and take over his soul.

Why does Dimmesdale seem to be hiding something during his conversation with Chillingworth? Dimmesdale seems to be hiding something by the way that Chillingworth notices certain things he does when he is feeling guilty or upset, like putting his hand over his chest, and he does that often throughout the conversation. How do the black flowers initiate a discussion on hidden sins? The black flowers initiate the discussion by Dimmesdale asking where Chillingworth got the herb and him saying that he found it on a grave and that it had grown out of a hidden sin of the man buried there.

What explanation does Dimmesdale offer for not confessing a hidden sin? What does Chillingworth do while Dimmesdale sleeps, and what does this action symbolize? What makes Dimmesdale a good minister? Even though him using his sin as inspiration for his sermons is what makes them so relatable, Dimmesdale is able to connect well to the people and make his sermons easily understood. Dimmesdale is trying to relieve some of his guilt to the public, which should make the people despise him, but it just makes them love him more.

The more despicable he says that he is, the more the people love him. Explain the ways that Dimmesdale tortures himself. Dimmesdale beats himself bloody with a scourge, fasts until the point where his knees shake when he stands, and keeps several night long vigils. He is punishing himself in all of these ways because he feels that it might take away some of the sin and guilt. What is Hawthorne suggesting about the effects of sin? Hawthorne is suggesting that an unconfessed sin eats at you both physically and mentally until you just finally begin to break down.

Why does Dimmesdale climb the scaffold at night? What is the source of his chest pain? Dimmesdale climbs the scaffold at night in an attempt to find some relief for his guilt and to confess his sin to the world in the in the only way possible without also losing his job. What other characters are walking around late at night and why?

John Wilson is walking back home from praying at the deathbed of Governor Winthrop. He feels a connection to both her and Hester. It like a surge of electric connection and life flows back into him.

Why does Pearl pull away from Dimmesdale? What are the two supernatural occurrences described? As that disappears, a faintly glowing red letter A appears, which is in reference to the scarlet letter.

How do the townspeople interpret the nighttime phenomenon? How does Dimmesdale behave the next day? He still feels extremely guilty, but he realizes that he must embrace his sin and live the lie full heartedly if he wants to keep his sin a secret.

Hester is no longer hated or despised. How is the scarlet letter interpreted? As Hester settles into her place in the community, the common people who she helps begin refusing to view the scarlet letter in the way that it was intended to be seen. Compare the feelings of the general public to those of the community leaders regarding Hester Prynne.

Explain why the groups view her differently. The general public have almost completely forgiven Hester for her sins because they are allowed to just look at the good deeds that she has done since then. All of the qualities that had made her so desirable and woman, like her grace, the love shining out of her face, and the passion that had filled her, have been stripped away from her because of this severity.

The only thing that could bring back her beauty would be being touched by or with tenderness. Compare the initial intent behind the scarlet letter to the actual effect on Hester. The initial intent behind the scarlet letter was to punish her for her sins and set her apart from the rest of the townspeople as an example of what happens to sinners.

But, the scarlet letter actually ends up as a symbol of her good deeds and eventually causes her to be regarded with a certain reverence. What does Hester resolve to do and why? Hester resolves to talk to Chillingworth because she wants to make him stop torturing Dimmesdale for a sin that she views as her doing. In what ways does Chillingworth look like a devil? Chillingworth looks like a devil in the way that the calm and smart man that he once was has been replaced by a man who is eager to figure something out and is wary of everyone because of it.

But, while he tries to hide this new version of himself by looking happy, it is still visible underneath the fake expressions, which makes the evil inside of him even more visible. On top of this, his eyes glow red, which suggests that his soul is on fire. Why does Chillingworth think he has a double reason for punishing Dimmesdale? Chillingworth admires and sympathizes with Hester when, while pleading with him to leave the man she sinned with alone, she gets so mad that she basically changes her mind and says that he can do whatever he wants with Dimmesdale.

What does Hester ask of Chillingworth? What is his response? Hester asks Chillingworth to leave Dimmesdale alone and let God pass judgement on him, but he refuses to do so. Does Chillingworth seem to be in control of his fate or controlled by his fate? Chillingworth seems to be controlled by his faith because his desire to have revenge on Dimmesdale is taking over and ruining his life.

How does Hester feel about Chillingworth? How does Pearl imitate her mother? Pearl imitates her mother by recreating the scarlet letter that Hester wears on her own chest with green seaweed. Why do you think she does this? Hester is determined to warn Dimmesdale about Chillingworth, but she will only meet him in the woods. Why will she not see Dimmesdale at his home? Hester contemplates upon her surroundings as she walks through the forest.

Explain what the footpath symbolizes in her mind. How is Pearl compared to the babbling brook? Pearl is compared to the babbling brook in the way that she came from a mysterious and trying situation and has been traveling through darkness since then, just like the brook.

But, they differ in the way that the brook is tired and gloomy while Pearl is happy and energetic. In what way does Hester acknowledge her sin to Pearl? Hester acknowledges her sin to Pearl by telling her that the scarlet letter is a mark left by the black man.

When he does understand that Chillingworth was her husband, he sinks to his knees and buries his face in his hands, saying that he should of known and can never forgive Hester for not telling him. Dimmesdale cares more for his social reputation than for anything else.

His self-respect, his peace, his love, his soul, — all may go: only let his reputation remain! And yet it is that selfsame false reputation that daily causes him the keenest anguish of all. Pearl, however, is the true creation of the book: every touch upon her portrait is a touch of genius, and her very conception is an inspiration. Yet the average mind would have found her an encumbrance. Every pretext would have been improved to send her out of the room, as it were, and to restrict her utterances, when she must appear, to monosyllables or sentimental commonplaces.

Not only is she free from repression of this kind, but she avouches herself the most vivid and active figure in the story. Instead of keeping pathetically in the background, as a guiltless unfortunate whose life was blighted before it began, this strange little being, with laughing defiance of precedent and propriety, takes the reins in her own childish hands, and dominates every one with whom she comes in contact.

This is an idea which it was left to Hawthorne to originate: ancient nor modern fiction supplies a parallel to Pearl. Yet Pearl was, all the while, the most unrelentingly real fact of her mother's ruined life. Standing as the incarnation, instead of the victim, of a sin, Pearl affords a unique opportunity for throwing light upon the inner nature of the sin itself. In availing himself of it, Hawthorne touches ground which, perhaps, he would not have ventured on, had he not first safeguarded himself against exaggeration and impiety by making his analysis accord so to speak with the definition of a child's personality.

Pearl, as we are frequently reminded, is the scarlet letter made alive, capable of being loved, and so endowed with a manifold power of retribution for sin. Like nature and animals, she is anterior to moral law; but, unlike them, she is human, too. She exhibits an unfailing vigor and vivacity of spirits joined to a precocious and almost preternatural intelligence, especially with reference to her mother's shameful badge.

This contrast, or, perhaps it is more correct to say, mingling, of the opposite poles of being, sin and innocence, in Pearl's nature is an extraordinary achievement; enabling us, as it does, to recognize the intrinsic ugliness of sin.

Pearl is like a beautiful but poisonous flower, rejoicing in its poison, and receiving it as the vital element of life. But the beauty makes the ugliness only the more impressive, because we feel it to be a magical or phantasmal beauty, enticing like the apples of Sodom, but full of bitterness within. It is the beauty which sin wears to the eyes of the tempted, — a beauty, therefore, which has no real existence, but is attributed by the insanity of lust.

Now, if Pearl were a woman, this strong external charm of hers would perplex the reader, in much the same way that the allurements of sin bewilder its votaries. The difficulty is to distinguish between what is really and permanently good and what only appears so while the spell lasts.

Pearl being a child, however, no such uncertainty can occur. She has not, as yet, what can in strictness be termed a character; she is without experience, and therefore devoid of either good or evil principles; she possesses a nature, and nothing more.

The affection which she excites, consequently, is immediately perceived to be due neither to her beauty not to her intellectual acuteness; still less to the evil effluence which exhales from these, and is characteristic of them.

These things all stand on one side; and the innocent, irresponsible infant soul stands on the other. Each defines and emphasizes the other: so that so far from one being led to confuse them, so far from being in danger of loving evil because we love Pearl, we love her just in proportion to our abhorrence of the evil which empoisons her manifestations.

The same discrimination could not be so sharply made if, indeed, it could be made at all in the case of a Pearl who, under unchanged conditions, had attained maturity. For her character would then be formed, and the evil which came to her by inheritance would so have tinged and moulded her natural traits that we should inevitably draw in the poison and the perfume at a single breath, — ascribe to evil the charm which derives from good, and pollute good with the lurid hues of evil.

The history of the race abundantly demonstrates that a chief cause of moral perversity and false principle has been our assumption of absolute proprietorship in either the good or the evil of our actions. Pearl, still in the instinctive stage of development, shows us the way out of this labyrinth. As the pure sunlight vivifies noxious as well as beneficent forms of existence, so the evil proclivities of the child's nature are energized, though not constituted, by the divine source of her being.

It would be interesting parenthetically to draw a parallel between Pearl and Beatrice, in Rappaccini's Daughter. Both are studies in the same direction, though from different standpoints. Beatrice is nourished upon poisonous plants, until she becomes herself poisonous. Pearl, in the mysterious prenatal world, imbibes the poison of her parents' guilt.

But, in either instance, behind this imported evil stands the personal soul: and the question is, Shall the soul become the victim of its involuntary circumstances?

Hawthorne, in both cases, inclines to the brighter alternative. But the problem of Beatrice is more complicated than that of Pearl. She was not born in guilt; but she was brought up to translate the symbolism amidst guilty associations, so that they had come to be the very breath of her life. But, in truth, Pearl's demon was summoned into existence, not by her own acts, but by the act of others; and, unless with her own conscious consent, it cannot pollute her.

Meanwhile, with that profound instinct of self-justification which antedates both reason and conscience in the human soul, the child is impelled on all occasions to assert and vindicate her cause, — the cause of the scarlet letter.

She will not consent to have it hidden or disavowed. She mocks and persecutes her mother, so long as the latter would disguise from her the true significance of the badge. When Hester casts it away, she stamps and cries with passion and will not be pacified till it is replaced. She distrusts the minister, save when, as in his plea for Hester in the governor's hall and his midnight vigil on the scaffold, he approaches an acknowledgment of his true position. In a word, she will have truth in all things: without truth nothing is good; nor, with truth, can anything be evil.

In the deepest sense, this is not only true, but it is the truth of the book. The perfectibility of man being infinite, the best man and the worst man alike must fall infinitely short of perfection: but every one can account honestly for such talents as he has; and it is always the motive, never the achievement, the sincerity, not the sound, that Divine Justice regards.

A Thug, who should devoutly believe in the holiness of his mission, would fare better than an evangelist, who should lead a thousand souls to salvation, not for God's glory, but for his own. So when little Pearl would frankly unfold the banner of the scarlet letter, and openly fight beneath it, we feel that God will give her victory, not over her apparent enemies, but over herself.

She is so much alive as to live independently of her actual appearances in the story. The imagination which there bodies her forth has done its work so well as to have imparted somewhat of its own power to the reader; and we can picture Pearl in other scenes and at other epochs in her career, and can even argue of her fate, had the conditions been different for her.

Suppose, for example, that Hester and the minister had made good their escape from Boston, or that the latter's confession had been delayed until Pearl had passed the age of puberty. In either of these or a dozen other possible alternatives, the progress of her growth would have had a new and important interest, conducting to fresh regions of speculation. But Hawthorne never allows the claims of a part to override the whole; the artist in him would permit nothing out of its due proportion; and Pearl, for all her untamable vitality, is kept strictly to her place and function in the story.

Where she speaks one word for her personal, she speaks two for her representative, character. There seems to be no partiality on the author's part; nor, on the other hand, is there any indifference. The same quiet light of charity irradiates each figure in the tale; and he neither makes a pet of Pearl, nor a scapegoat of Roger Chillingworth. Dramatically, the last-named personage plays perhaps the most important part of the four; he communicates to the plot whatever movement it exhibits.

But what renders him chiefly remarkable is the fact that, although he stands as the injured husband, and therefore with the first claim to our sympathy and kindness, he in reality obtains neither, but appears more devoid of attraction than any other character in the tale. This would seem an unconventional and rather venturesome proceeding; for the average mind, in modern English fiction, finds itself under moral obligations to use every precaution, lest the reader fall into some mistake as to the legitimate objects of favor and of reprobation.

Continental novelists, to be sure, have a sort of perverse pleasure in defying Anglo-Saxon taste in this particular, and do not shrink from making the lawful partner of the erring wife either odious or ridiculous. But it will be profitable to inquire in what respect the American romancer follows or diverges from these two methods of treatment. It is evident, of course, that the fact that a man has suffered injury has nothing to say, one way or the other, as to his personal character; and the only reason why a novelist should represent him as amiable rather than the reverse is in an instance like the present that the reader might otherwise, in disliking him, be led to regard too leniently the crime of which he is the victim.

Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale, however, are not so presented as to invite such misplaced tenderness on the reader's part; while Chillingworth, on the other hand, though certainly not a lovable, is very far from being an absurd or contemptible, figure.

The force, reserve, and dignity of his demeanor win our respect at the outset, and the touches of quiet pathos in his first interview with Hester prepare us to feel a more cordial sentiment.

But the purpose of the author is more profound and radical than could be fulfilled by this obvious and superficial way of dealing with the situation. His attitude is not that of a sentimental advocate, but of an impartial investigator; he is studying the nature and effect of sinful passions, and is only incidentally concerned with the particular persons who are the exponents thereof. He therefore declines, as we are not long in finding out, to allow the course of events to be influenced by the supposed moral rights or wrongs of either party.

He simply penetrates to the heart of each, and discloses the secrets hidden there, — secrets whose general and permanent vastly outweighs their personal and particular significance.

The relation of Chillingworth to the lovers has been pronounced, by an able critic, the most original feature of the book.

But it did not so appear to the author's mind. It was a necessary outcome of his plan, and seems more original than the rest only because the pervading originality of the whole happens to be more strikingly visible in Chillingworth than elsewhere. But given Hester and the minister, and the punishment inflicted upon the former, and Chillingworth becomes inevitable. For the controlling purpose of the story, underlying all other purposes, is to exhibit the various ways in which guilt is punished in this world, — whether by society, by the guilty persons themselves, or by interested individuals who take the law into their own hands.

The method of society has been exemplified by the affixing of the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom. This is her punishment, the heaviest that man can afflict upon her. But, like all legal punishment, it aims much more at the protection of society than at the reformation of the culprit. Hester is to stand as a warning to others tempted as she was: if she recovers her own salvation in the process, so much the better for her; but, for better or worse, society has ceased to have any concern with her.

In a word, society, as at present administered, presents the unhandsome spectacle of a majority of successful hypocrites, on one side, contending against a minority of discovered criminals, on the other; and we are reduced to this paradox, — that the salvation of humanity depends primarily on the victory of the criminals over the hypocrites.

Of course, this is only another way of saying that hypocrisy is the most destructive to the soul of all sins; and meanwhile we may comfort ourselves with the old proverb that hypocrisy itself is the homage which vice pays to virtue, or, if the inward being of society were in harmony with its outward seeming, heaven would appear on earth.

Hester, then, the social outcast, finds no invitation to repentance in the law that crushes her. The only alternative it offers her is abject self-extinction, or defiance. She chooses the latter: but at this point her course is swayed by a providential circumstance with which society had nothing to do.

God, as a direct consequence of the sin which man had thus punished, had given her a lovely child, whose place was on that same dishonored bosom, to connect her parent forever with the race and descent of mortals, and to be finally a blessed soul in heaven. Had they taken her from me, I would willingly have gone with thee into the forest, and signed my name in the Black Man's book too, and that with mine own blood! Standing, as she did, alone with Pearl amidst a hostile world, her life turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling to thought.

She cast away the fragments of a broken chain. The world's law was no law for her mind. She assumed a freedom of speculation which her neighbors, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter. Shadowy guests entered her lonesome cottage that would have been as perilous as demons to their entertainer, could they have been seen so much as knocking at her door.

One of the most complex and misunderstood symbols in the book is Pearl, the illegitimate daughter of Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Throughout the novel Pearl develops into a dynamic symbol; one that is always changing. In the following essay, I will explore Hawthorne's symbolism of Pearl from birth, age three, and age seven. Also, I will attempt to disprove the notion that Pearl is branded with a metaphorical scarlet letter "A" representing amorality; instead she represents the immorality of her mother's adultery.

This relationship between Hester and Pearl is important because both are ostracized for their irregularities and for the sin and shame of Hester. As the novel commences, the Puritan officials had deem that Hester is to wear a scarlet "A" on her bosom for the rest of her natural life as a form of punishment for her sin. The Puritan community shuns her for the "A," meaning adultery. The other punishment that Hester received is Pearl.

Pearl serves as the prominent symbol of the immoral love affair between Hester Pyrnne and the Reverend Dimmesdale. This realization dawns upon Hester when "her first impulse to clasp the infant closely to her bosom; not so much by an impulse of motherly affection, as that she might thereby conceal a certain token.

Pearl is a unique character. She touches the scarlet letter, but little does she know that she is the reason for the punishment. Throughout the story, she develops into a dynamic individual, as well as an extremely important symbol.

Pearl is shunned from society due to her mother's sin. She is a living representation of the scarlet letter, acting as a constant reminder of Hester's sin. Stade expla Pearl constantly shows intelligence and maturity that surprises many of the characters. Lastly, Pearl is put in the story to complete a mission, and she completes this by showing her mother hope and grace.

Works Cited Hawthorne. When still in her crib, Pearl reaches up and grasps the letter, causing "Hester Prynn [to] clutch the fatal token… so infinite was the torture inflicted by the intelligent touch of Pearl's baby-hand" Hawthorne Hester feels implicitly guilty whenever she sees Pearl, a feeling she reflects onto her innocent child.

She is therefore constantly questioning Pearl's existence and purpose with questions: asking God, "what is this being which I have brought into the world! A pearl is a precious thing; the finest example of something; pure, white, sinless.