Scarlet Letter in 1850 in a time much later than the Puritan setting. The main character, Hester Prynne, commits an act of adultery, subsequently has a child, and is forced to wear the scarlet “A” as punishment. The child produced from Hester’s sin is called Pearl. Pearl is her mother’s greatest treasure, as well as the greatest price Hester has ever paid (Hawthorne 499). In The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne uses Pearl to symbolize the Scarlet Letter; her fiend-like actions, her attachment to the letter
to stay. “Her sin, her ignominy, were the roots to which she had struck into the soil. It was as if a new birth, with stronger assimilation than the first had converted the forestland, still so uncongenial to every other pilgrim and wanderer, into Hester Prynne’s wild and dreary, but life-long home.” (“The Scarlet Letter” 494) In this quote we see Hawthorne’s usage of forest-like words such as roots and soil to describe how her sin forces her to stay and live out her shame like a criminal returning