The Most Expensive Pearl It is said that a daughter steals her mother’s beauty. Does that mean she also acquires her mother’s burdens, sins and reputation? In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, struggles to escape her mother’s shadow. Pearl lives a lonely life, an outcast as the result of her mother’s great sin. Not just as a character in the novel, but as a symbol throughout the story. Pearl represents the price of sin in her mere existence, and her fascination for her mother’s “A”; Pearl also stands for hope and redemption of sin.
The scarlet letter reminds Hester of her sin, but Pearl lives as the proof. Pearl’s existence constantly mocks Hester of the wrongs she committed. Pearl’s name tokens the price Hester paid to live her life with Pearl.…show more content… In deciding to raise Pearl, Hester had to give up her way of life in the Puritan community. Hester became shunned and decided to live on the outskirts of the Puritan town. She gave up all the social, religious, and physical benefits of the Puritan community to raise Pearl in a more welcoming environment. However; Pearl, being the daughter of Hester and not growing up in Puritan tradition was an outcast in the community. When visiting the town, Pearl would always travel by her mother’s side and never interact with the other children, if she was approached by the children “she [threw] stones at them while screaming in a way that sounded like a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue” (96). Pearl’s unusual behavior