Essay On The Scarlet Letter Comparison

1500 Words6 Pages
The Scarlet Letter Comparison Lying, cheating, stealing, and guilt all cause the perishing of heart and conscience. But love, compassion, and forgiveness is the cure for the dying of one’s heart. Hawthorne writes that love and hate “is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether [it] may be not the same thing at bottom” (Hawthorne 246).In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie, and Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables all portray the ideal of the importance of love, compassion, sympathy, and forgiveness can help one from perishing. In The Scarlet Letter, Hester was given a lifelong punishment of wearing the scarlet “A” on her chest because of her sin being an adulteress. From her sin, she had given birth to a child, Pearl. “But she named the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price—purchased with all she had—her mother’s only treasure!” (Hawthorne 60). Hester cared for her daughter who was practically her only treasure because Pearl was the only thing society hadn’t taken away from her. Although Pearl is the living proof of her mother’s scarlet letter, sin and punishment, she is also a blessing. Her…show more content…
Admitting her guilt to her child is admitting her “sexual nature and its need for proper regulation”, as Gable describes. Plus, is Hester does admit her guilt, it would mean the punishment actually worked and Pearl would be taken away from her, which would be losing her treasure, and a piece of herself. Gable says that “Hester believes that the “sympathy” that herself needs to live… can only come through Pearl” (Gable). This is quite accurate because, in this horrible situation, one can lose themselves in trying to find the truer self. In other words, Hester is incapable of finding her true self without the help of Pearl, a piece of Hester’s true
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