The scarlet letter, a book about a lady named Hester Prynne who lived in the New World, in Puritan Boston. She committed adultery, and gave birth to a child, which was named Pearl. Pearl’s father were not revealed to the public at the time when she was released from prison because Hester decided not to do so, she did not want her child to have an Earthly father but instead she wanted Pearl to have an heavenly father. Hester wanted pearl to be brought up in the normal way of the time of Puritanism. At this time they used strictness and used the rod frequently, but even though Hester at first tried to do her best at this. She quickly realised that Pearl was not going to adapt to her methods so she could not set any restrictions for her. Instead Pearl developed to be a wild child, to her mother and the rest of the Puritan community she seemed to be a little elf and they sometimes doubted that she was human
, “ Hester was constrained to rush towards the child,- to pursue the little!
Pearl is not entirely described as a wild and savage child like the community sees her as. At the end where Pearl is running about in the market place she runs to the seamen “…they gazed wonderingly and admiringly at Pearl, as if a flake of the sea foam had taken the shape of a little maid, and were gifted with a soul of the seafire, that flashes beneath the prow in the night-time.” Here she is described as the sea foam that flickers in front of the boat, which is a big change from when she was described as a little evil elf or an imp, the change symbolises that her mother at the same time is to be relieved from the agony which she has carried for such a long time, now she is relieved of it as Mr. Dimmesdale were to tell to the public that he is the father of Pearl, and the spell of the scarlet letter is to be broken.
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