Term Paper Understanding Chinese Classics
Thesis：The Symbolic Meanings of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter
College：The College of the Foreign Languages
Major：English
Name: Tian Jun Class Number:10090213
Lecturer：Jiang Yujiao
Co-Lecturers:Li Guicang, Xuan Bingshan, and Guo Jianling
Time：2013-06
Scores:
Content
Abstract (1)
1. Introduction (2)
2. Pearl the character (2)
3. The symbolic meanings of Pearl (4)
3.1 Pearl as a guilt (4)
3.2 Pearl as an ideal life (5)
3.3 Pearl as a truth (6)
3.4 Pearl as a pearl (8)
5. Conclusion (9)
Works Cited (10)
The Symbolic Meanings of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter
Abstract: As a main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne‟s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl, the sin-born infant of Hester Prynne and Dimmesdale, plays an fairly important role in the progressing of plots and the delivering of author‟s values. Similar to the scarlet letter A, Pearl is not only a character in the novel, but also has various kinds of symbolic meanings, and this paper aims to interpret these meanings of Pearl.
Key words: symbolic meanings; Pearl; The Scarlet Letter
1.Introduction
Nathaniel Hawthorne(1804-1864) is considered to be one of the greatest fiction writers in the history of American literature who creates quite a few famous works including Mosses From an Old Manse (1846), The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), and The Blithedale Romance (1852). Hawthorne‟s works belong to romanticism or, more specifically, dark romanticism, cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humanity (Wayne 140). Many of his works are inspired by Puritan New England, combining historical romance loaded with symbolism and deep psychological themes, bordering on surrealism. His depictions of the past are a version of historical fiction used only as a vehicle to express common themes of ancestral sin, guilt and retribution (Howe 633). All these features have been embodied splendidly in The Scarlet Letter.
The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne‟s representative work, makes a breakthrough in the traditional novel-creation in America, which also highlights Hawthorne‟s thoughts and artistic style. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston, Massachusetts during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an adulterous affair and struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity. Finally she succeeds, changing the meaning of the letter A from “Adultery” to “Angel” and “Ability”. On the other hand, Dimmesdale, a venerable priest, who commits adultery together with Hester, hides his sin deep in himself and suffers a lot from both Hester‟s ex-husband and his own condemn. In the end of the story, unable to bear his sin any longer, he confesses himself in the public and dies on the scaffold.
Hawthorne is commonly considered as an expert of symbolic art, and The Scarlet Letter is undoubtedly the representative work of his symbolism in which the scarlet letter, the roses before the prison, the forest, and all the characters have their specific symbolic meanings. Among all these symbols, Pearl can be a distinct one as she is both a main character and a special symbol.
2. Pearl the character
Pearl, born out of a guilty passion between Hester and Dimmesdale, is doomed to be secluded by the society along with her mother since she was born. As Hawthorne depicts in the novel, the girl is delicate and perfect in the shape, has a native grace, loves the nature world deeply, “worthy to have been left in Eden to be the plaything of the angels after the world‟s first parents were driven out” (Hawthorne
108). But this sin-born girl is by no means a common girl. On the other hand, she is wild, vigorous, capricious, and aggressive.
Hawthorne uses various similes and comparisons to portray this extraordinary girl. To most townspeople, unable to find the child‟s father, they believe that Pearl is an offspring of demon. As a result, the girl is isolated by society and peers. “Pearl was a born outcast of the infantile world. An imp of evil, emblem and product of sin, she had no right amon g christened infants” (Hawthorne 109). But the child comprehends her loneliness well. As she and her mother are secluded by the people, the girl isolates herself from the infantile world as well.
“Pearl saw, and gazed intently, but never sought to make acq uaintance. If spoken to, she would not speak again. If the children gathered about her, as they sometimes did, Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations that made her mother tremble, because they had so much the sound of a witch's anathemas in some unknown tongue.” (Hawthorne 112)
When the girl was born, a great law was broken. As a result, Pearl could not be made amenable to rules. According to old Roger Chillingworth,
“There is no law, nor reverence for authority, no regard for human ordinances or opinions, right or wrong, mixed up with that child's composition” (Hawthorne 112), and she would bespatter the Governor with water.
At that time, the holy and supreme religion—the Puritanism, was not binding on the child, either. When the venerable minister Mr. Wilson—here we may also see him as a representation of Puritanism, tried to draw Pearl betwixt his knees, the girl “escaped through the open window, and stood on the up per step, looking like a wild tropical bird of rich plumage, ready to take flight into the upper air” (Hawthorne 125).
As for Hester, she understands deeply the unusual traits of her child, and sometimes bursts into passionate tears. The girl is so capricious that it was like nothing so much as the phantasmagoric play of the northern lights, which is another simile by Hawthorne. Though it is difficult for Hester to bring the child up, the girl has a born charm in her body which always makes her feel as if it could not be the image of her own child, but of an imp who was seeking to mold itself into Pearl's shape (Wang Jiaqi 145).
There are several scenes of Pearl‟s playing in the natur al world in the novel. When with nature, the elf-child can be like a bird, and sometimes decorates herself as a little mermaid. We can never see a picture more harmonious than those of Pearl
playing happily in the forest or beside a river elsewhere in the novel.
Apart from a curious mind about the natural world, the girl has as much inquisitiveness on other things. Besides, her precocity and inborn acuteness make it easier for her to understand anything she wants to know. Though a little girl (She is only seven until the end of the story), Pearl seems to know much about the scarlet letter on her mother‟s bosom, the minister‟s hand over his heart, the ends of the old black man, and something more (Zhao Xiong & Wang Zheng 58).
In a word, Pearl is a girl in the flesh in the novel. As a little girl, she is distinct from others not only in appearance and attire, but also in her character. Furthermore, Pearl is not just a girl or a character in the whole story, as Hawthorne endows her with much deep meaning and implication.
3. The symbolic meanings of Pearl
Hawthorne has adopted symbolism as one of his main writing techniques in The Scarlet Letter. The scarlet letter, undoubtedly, is the most obvious and frequently-used symbol of the novel. However, to some extent, Pearl is also a common symbol parallel to the scarlet letter in many ways.
3.1 Pearl as a guilt
Firstly, as the product of Hester and Dimmesdale‟s adultery, Pearl brings Hester‟s guilt before the public. It is Pearl that makes people find the crime Hester has committed, thus she is a much more vivid symbol and reminder compared to the scarlet letter on Hester‟s bosom. She can talk, jump, and keep asking Hester what the scarlet letter A means, which constantly reminds Hester of her guilt (Peng Shiyu 16).
On the other hand, Pearl first appeared as a new-born infant at the start of the story when she was held in her mother‟s bosom, the very place the scarlet “A” was embroidered. Hester once tried to cover the scarlet letter by clutching the child fiercely to her breast and gave up realizing the child is just another form of the scarlet letter, “a scarlet letter endowed with life” (Hawthorne 65). In this act Pearl comes to an equal place with the scarlet letter.
Further more, Hester understands fully Pearl‟s symbolic meaning and it is she who makes Pearl an obvious symbol of her fault by dressing the little girl delicately and brightly. Hawthorne describes Pearl‟s attire several times in the novel, every time he suggests such a dressing way has a deeper meaning. And he finally reveals Hester‟s intent in the 6th chapter:
The mother herself—as if the red ignominy were so deeply scorched into
her brain that all her conceptions assumed its form—had carefully
wrought out the similitude, lavishing many hours of morbid ingenuity to
create an analogy between the object of her affection and the emblem of
her guilt and torture. But, in truth, Pearl was the one as well as the other;
and only in consequence of that identity had Hester contrived so perfectly
to represent the scarlet letter in her appearance. (Hawthorne 108)
3.2 Pearl as an ideal life
Apart from a symbol of her mother‟s guilt, Pearl also plays a part as a symbol of an ideal life. The keynote, or the general tint of the story is gray and dark. There are only two things distinguishing themselves from such a depressive society by their bright colors—the scarlet letter and Pearl. Though a Puritan, Hawthorne was not so satisfied with the contemporary society composed of Puritan emigrants. As a result, he endows the little girl with many qualities the then Puritans lack—vigor, sincerity, freedom and love (Ren Xiaojin 36). Among all the other characters in the novel, there is no such figure that is as vigorous and free as Pearl. Hester, although making every effort to do people good, has lost all her womanhood after wearing the scarlet letter. The Revered Arthur Dimmesdale, has already spiritually dead the time he hides the guilt in his heart. Let alone Roger Chillingworth, who lost himself and lives in shadow since Hester‟s betrayal. The little Pearl, on the other hand, is an innocent and pur e life full of vigor and is the only character with vitality and hope. That‟s why, I believe, Hawthorne gives Pearl the best end of all the characters in the novel. She received a very considerable amount of property from old Roger Chillingworth which makes her the richest heiress of her day in the New World, and lives happily in another land.
Pearl is most happy and free when she is in the natural world. Hawthorne is not mean in depicting the pictures of the girl with nature, which are always full of bright hues against other gray and black scenes in the novel. When Pearl is in the garden of the governor‟s hall, on the margin of the water, or in the forest, she would fly like a bird, smile like an elf, and decorates herself with weeds and flowers like a little mermaid. In a new society ruled under rigid and inflexible Puritanism, Pearl seems to be an outsider of it. “In giving her existence a great law had been broken” (Hawthorne 132), as a result, the child behaviors against rules and lacks reference as well as adaptation to the world into which she was born. This does not mean the world is all wrong, and the girl falls from the Heaven to save the people, as the comparison the author has made in the market place scene—by contrasting the scene of Hester
holding Pearl and that of Divine Maternity holding Jesus in her arms. Hester Prynne couldn‟t possibly be Virgin Mary, neither could Pearl be Jesus to redeem the whole world. But the child, unlike all the other people in her time, is always true, and expresses her thoughts directly. She likes what she likes, and hates what she hates. In this way Pearl is also a symbol of freedom (Su Yuxiao 19).
3.3 Pearl as a truth
The author gives much information about Pearl in Chapter 8, where he shares Hester‟s bewilderme nt in the fostering and education of the little girl. The mother senses the precocity and inborn acuteness of Pearl. It is the very acuteness of the girl that brings almost all the truth to readers, and that‟s how Pearl plays as an indispensable clue in the plot progressing of the novel.
What is t he first thing Pearl had noticed in her life? It may be the mother‟s smile to other babies, but our Pearl is by no means a common infant. “But that first object of which Pearl seemed to become aware was—shall we say it?—the scarlet letter on Hester's bosom!” (Hawthorne 132). What‟ more, she would grasp at it with a peculiar smile and odd expression of the eyes.
The girl‟s childhood life is always with the scarlet letter. She kept asking her mother what the scarlet letter means, but when she was asked back, she seemed to answer to the exact point, as she gives the answer “it is for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart!” (Hawthorne 135) in answering her mother‟s answer why she should wear the letter.
Furthermore, Pearl has a special feeling and dependence on the scarlet letter. She would fling wild flowers at Hester‟s bosom, the very place the scarlet letter was wore; she would also make a letter A by eel-grass and wears it on her own bosom. She is so familiar with the letter that when Hester took it from her bosom and threw it away, the girl “burst into a fit of passion, gesticulating violently, and throwing her small figure into the most extravagant contortions. She accompanied this wild outbreak with piercing shrieks” (Hawthorne 255). From this behavior it can be inferred that Pearl holds habitually an intimate feeling towards the scarlet letter. In her little mind, the letter has been a part of her mother, and she should never ever leave it.
Pearl‟s acuteness can not only been seen in her attitude towards the scarlet letter, but also her manner to the minister Dimmesdale, her secret father. It may ascribe to the blood bond between the two, or Pearl‟s born instinct and acuteness that she kn ows naturally and fuzzily the unusual relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale. Hawthorne depicts several times the manner of Pearl towards Dimmesdale—each is
full of suspect and hostility save the last time. Given the negative answer to her question “Wi lt thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?”(Hawthorne 183), the little girl, though as young as 7 years old, answered, “Thou wast not bold!—thou wast not true” (Hawthorne 183), which is exactly one of Hawthorne‟s themes in writing this book. This answer of the little 7-year-old girl bears similarity with what has been written in the last conclusion chapter, “Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!”(Hawthorne 184) Pearl‟s hostility towards the minister culminates in the 19th chapter when Dimmesdale kisses her on the brow：
Pearl broke away from her mother, and, running to the brook, stooped
over it, and bathed her forehead, until the unwelcome kiss was quite
washed off and diffused through a long lapse of the gliding water.
(Hawthorne 257)
On the other hand, Pearl again plays as an important role in another impressive scene in the last but one chapter—the revelation of the scarlet letter. The scene that the minister stands upon the scaffold and face the public as well as his own sin, is, doubtlessly the climax of the whole novel. And at this same scene, before the minister breathes his last, Pearl express her love to her sinful father, only once:
Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in
which the wild infant bore a part had developed all her sympathies; and
as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she
would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with
the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand
as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled. (Hawthorne 312)
Being a messenger of truth, Pearl also feels the malignity of the poor Roger Chillingworth and calls him “old black man”. She told Hester in the 10th chapter: Come away, mother! Come away, or yonder old black man will catch you!
He hath got hold of the minister already. Come away, mother or he will
catch you! But he cannot catch little Pearl! (Hawthorne 162) When all the other town people cannot find Hester‟s partner in committing adultery, Pearl, the product of this very sin, knows clearly the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale, the minister‟s sin, the leech‟s conspiracy and the importance of being true. She is not only a messenger of anguish towards her mother, but also a messenger of truth bringing forth the essence of life to the minister, to the woman, to the old man, and to the readers.
3.4 Pearl as a pearl
Hawthorne has explained the origin of the name Pearl in Chapter 6, “But she named the infant …Pearl‟ as being of great price—purchased with all she had—her mothe r's only treasure!”(Hawthorne 108) Here the word “pearl” shares a similar meaning with that in the Bible, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bough t it”(Matthew 13: 45). Hawthorne must have associated the two together as another evidence can be found in the book—When the government tries to take Pearl from Hester, she defends her child by saying, “God gave me the child! He gave her in requital of al l things else which ye had taken from me” (Hawthorne 125). Therefore, it is easy to infer that Pearl is a really fine pearl worthy an exchange of all her mother has—her reputation, her family, her love, her womanhood. To define it more exactly, Hester purchases Pearl with almost her whole life.
Pearl is truly worthy what Hester has paid for her in that the little girl has done much for her mother and her secret father.
Hawthorne narrates Hester‟s fight for her custody right of Pearl in the 7th and 8th chapter, which also manifest the necessity and importance of Pearl to Hester Prynne by the woman‟s own word. Much evidence can be found in these two chapters, “Alone in the world, cast off by it, and with this sole treasure to keep her heart alive, she felt that she possessed indefeasible rights against the world, and was ready to defend them to the death”(Hawthorne 127) such is a psychological description of Hester which indicates the vital importance of Pearl to Hester. At the same time, Hester has spoken it out by herself before the governor and the ministers, “She is my happiness—she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me, too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a millionfold the power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!” (Hawthorne 127)
It is true. Though Pearl brought Hester‟s sin to the public, and made the raising of herself hard for Hester, she is indispensable. It is Pearl that reminds her continually of the sin she has; it is Pearl that makes Hester live her rest life to retribute; it is Pearl that keeps her mother‟s soul alive; and it is Peal, again, that preserve her from blacker depths of sin into which Satan might else have sought to plunge her (Zhang Jieming 3).
Being also a daughter of our Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, Pearl functions as a reminder to make the man realize his fake and hypocrisy. Pearl keeps asking “Wilt
thou stand here with mother and me, to-morrow noontide?” Until he finally reveals his sin and guilt to the public on the scaffold, he is not liked by his own daughter. Thus we have reason to believe that Pearl plays a part to make Dimmesdale gain courage to reveal himself. The dislike and inquiry of Pearl help Dimmesdale to make the final and difficult decision that he should take off his reverend garment and dispose his scarlet letter.
5. Conclusion
By a luxuriant adoption of symbolism, Hawthorne delivers an important mission to the little girl Pearl—to reveal the truth of the scarlet letter, to help the main characters find the right way to cope with their sins, and to present an ideal woman image—or we‟d rather say—an ideal human image in the author‟s mind to us, as he has indicates in the book—the unusual infant is a lovely and immortal flower born from sin and ignominy.
Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Shanghai: Yilin Press, 2012.
Howe, Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. 633.
Wayne, Tiffany. Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Facts on File, 2006. 140.
张介明，“珠儿：生命的红字”，《吉首大学学报》1993年第6期，第1-6页。
[Zhang Jieming. “Pearl: The Scarlet Letter of Life.”Journal of Jishou University.
6(1993): 1-6.]
王嘉琦，“《红字》中父亲的‘缺席’与珠儿的自我认知”，《文学界》2012年第2期，第145-155页。
[Wang Jiaqi. “The Absence of Father in The Scarlet Letter and the Self-recognition of Pearl.”Literatures. 2(2012): 145-155.]
赵雄、王铮，“《红字》中珠儿的象征与反讽”，《作家杂志》2011年第9期，第58-59页。
[Zhao Xiong & Wang Zheng. “The Symbolism and Sarcasm of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter.”Writers. 9(2011): 58-59.]
彭石玉，“《红字》中的象征主义和道德观”，《文教资料》2006年第6期，第15-17页。
[Peng Shiyu. “The Symbolism and Morality in The Scarlet Letter.”Data of Culture and Education. 6(2006): 15-17.]
任晓晋，“《红字》中象征与原型的模糊性、多义性和矛盾性”，《外国文学研究》2000年第1期，第35-39页。
[Ren Xiaojin. “The Ambiguity, Polysemy and Contradiction of the Symbols and prototypes in The Scarlet Letter.”Foreign Literature Studies. 1(2000): 35-39.]
苏欲晓，“罪与救赎:霍桑《红字》的基督教伦理解读”，《外国文学研究》2007年第4期，第19-22页。
[Su Yuxiao. “Sin and Redemption: Hawthorne‟s The Scarlet Letter from a Christian Ethical Perspective.” Foreign Literature Studies. 4(2007): 19-22.]。
