Since Pearl is the living version of Hester’s scarlet letter, she becomes its symbol, its double, and its agent. In all the descriptions of Pearl, her affinity with the scarlet letter is stressed: “it was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life” (102). Hester carefully dresses Pearl in clothing that mimics the color and embroidery of the letter; this gesture stresses the way Pearl is her mother’s creation. The letter is represented in Pearl twice: once in her costume, which Hester has intentionally designed to resemble the letter, “lavishing many of morbid ingenuity, to create an analogy between the object of her affection, and the emblem of her guilt and torture” (102); and again in the child herself.
Pearl’s character does not function as a typical character; she functions as a symbol that successfully represents Hester and the scarlet letter. In addition to these representations, Pearl represents youth, truth, and nature, for she lives to expose the truth: “A spell was broken…as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, not for ever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it” (206). When the truth is exposed, Pearl has the opportunity to become human for the first time.
cial, original relation to the scarlet letter. She is not only the letter as Hester might conceive it, but its instrument in a scheme that is quite independent of her. It is Pearl’s role to enforce the mother’s guilt and represent her rebellion. She
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