The Symbolic Pearl

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to put it back on, which eventually Hester does.
Pearl is obviously a definite person, but she is also a definite symbol of many things. First, she is a distinct symbol of the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. She is a representative of the passion, which came with Hester’s sin of adultery. Second, she is an active reminder of Hester’s sin besides the letter A on her breast. And lastly, Pearl becomes mesmerized by her mother’s scarlet letter. She pelts the letter with flowers, “covering the mother’s breast with hurts for which she could find no balm in this world.” Pearl’s “inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter” is fully developed when Pearl imitates her mother by placing a seaweed letter A on her own breast.
But the most important symbol that Pearl reflects is when they are in the forest. In one of the book’s most dramatic scenes, Pearl blocks her mother’s attempt to ...

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