She enjoys frolicking in the forest, just prancing around without a care having the scattered light dance over her through the trees. When Pearl and her mother are in the governor's house, Pearl adores the sunlight shining through the stained glass windows. Subsequent to this, Pearl asks her mother for some of her sunlight. Hester simply responds, "I have none to give thee." (Hawthorne, chapter 4).
Hester has no sunlight to give thee because she has committed the sin of adultery. Through out the novel Hester is not seen much in the sun. She avoids going into the sun because it illuminates and exposes the scarlet "A" on her chest. Hester used to be one of the finest most beautiful puritan women in the town. The sunlight would shine down on her almost brighter than it did on the other puritans, almost like a halo. When Hester committed the sin of adultery, her light and beauty quickly vanished. She no longer had the halo shinning over her head, but now it was almost as though a curtain of darkness fell over her soul and presence. At one point, near the conclusion of the novel, Hester redeemed her puritan soul and got her light back. She had made plans to travel to Europe, to live a peaceful and happy life, with her partner in sin, Dimmesdale, and Pearl. At that moment she took off her bonnet and ripped that lousy scarlet "A" off of her chest. A beam of light then shown down upon her, upon her bosom, revealing her cleansed soul. She had now looked almost as beautiful as she did in the beginning of the novel, no longer carrying that painful weight upon her shoulders, the scarlet letter. When this was all happening, Hester called for her daughter Pearl to come to her. Pearl did not come and it was as if though Pearl did not recognize her own mother without the scarlet letter upon her chest. This symbolized that Pearl will always be a reminder of Hester's dark life, no matter where she will go.
