Prepared By: Shabana Khalani

Roll No:28

Sem-III

Paper No:10

Unit No2:

Department Of English

Maharaja Krishnakumarsihji University,

Bhavnagar

PEARL: A LIVING ‘A’ IN

THE SCARLET LETTER

There are three leading characters in the

novel.

These characters are:

1. Hester Prynne

2. Arthur Dimmesdale

3. Roger Chillingworth

The theme of the novel belongs to the Puritan

Age.

Adultery is the theme of the novel.

CHARACTERS AND THEME

Hester‘s adultery with the priest Dimmesedale

Hester’s punishment in front of society in

scaffold scene she for her sin

Hester’s daughter Pearl was in her hand

Dimmesale’s silence in spite of equally

responsible for the sin

Cillingworth, Hester’s husband gesture for

demanding silence

CHARACTERS AND THEMES CONTI..

Hester had to wear Red ‘A’ on her

bosom which stands for Adulteress

She was forced to live isolated

life with Pearl

Hester changed the meaning of

“A”

MEANING OF ‘A’

Adultery Angel

Illegitimate Daughter of

Hester

She asks difficult

questions to her mother

She is the only person

who was with the Hester

during her tough time

Pearl’s important role

more as a dynamic force

of moral guardian than a

static symbol of sin in the

plot

PEARL

She’s the only link language between her

mother Hester and father Dimmesedale

Pearl had to live with her mother in the community

Pearl and Hester lived in the forest in isolation as

a punishment.

She refuse Dimmesedale to kiss on her forehead

saying that why in private? The negligence in

public is quite odd matter for her.

Her suffering and pain is the result of her parents’

sin

PEARL

Hawthorne described Pearl as

“The child could not be made amenable to rules. In giving her

existence, a great law had been broken; and the result was a

being whose elements were perhaps beautiful and brilliant, but

all in disorder…The mother‘s impassioned state had been the

medium through which were transmitted to the unborn infant

the rays of its moral life: and, however white and clear

originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold,

the fiery luster, the black shadow, and the untempered light of

the intervening substance .”

PEARL

Hawthorn put a direct real satire on Society by

projecting a Daughter becomes a curse / a burden

for her mother Hester’s life

Hester through out her life is the moral being just as

pure as Pearl.

Pearl is a child out of wedlock yet she shares the

same life as pure as her mother the way as the Letter

‘A’ for Adultery converts into the Angel for Hester.

Thus, we can says the Pearl is the living Letter ‘A’ in

the Scarlet letter

PEARL