"The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne: Pearl as a Symbolic Device to Work on the Consciences of Hester and Dimmesdale

Pearl as a Symbolic Device to Work on the Consciences of Hester and Dimmesdale In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Pearl Prynne is the living manifestation of the scarlet letter. She is the visible tie between Hester and Dimmesdale. The beautiful estranged daughter of the town adulteress, Pearl has demon-like traits. She is a very strange child, yet she is the one who leads both Hester and Dimmesdale to the acceptance of their sin and …

…letter, alive. Pearl worked hard on the consciences of Dimmesdale and Hester and finally achieved her goal at the end of the book. Throughout the book, the things Pearl says and does to Hester and Dimmesdale appear to be harsh and make her appear to be a demon child, but, at the end, the reader realizes that for Hester to finally accept her sin and Dimmesdale to confess his, Pearl's starkness was a definite necessity.