e scarlet letter than she lets on. Throughout the conversation Pearl is impish and teasing,saying one thing and contradicting it soon after. She refuses to say just what she means, whichmakes it hard for Hester to give a straight answer. Hester is shocked that her playful daughter haslead their conversation to the topic of the scarlet letter. Pearl, in bringing this forbidden andpainful subject about, unwittingly inflicts agony upon her unhappy mother. Hester cannot tell herdaughter what has passed between the minister and herself and come clean. Pearl symbolizes a hidden part of her mother that has not, and will never be exposed andtherefore washed free of sin. Pearl was always drawn to the ”A”, and seemed to twist thesymbolic knife in Hester’s bosom every time she thought she was free of her burden of sin byrudely reminding her of the letter and the meaning it bore. Pearl’s questioning wrenched Hester’sheart when the child seemed to somehow know about the Scarlet Letters meaning. Pearl’sprecocity worried Hester constantly. Hester Prynne herself realized that Pearl was unlike otherchildren, and prayed that she was not sin incarnate. Pearl was “the scarlet letter endowed withlife”. Pearl represented the part of Hester to be always dulled by the searing judgment of others inthat she was Hester’s ceaseless reminder of the sin she had committed, but also symbolizedeverything about Hester that was free and alive. Pearl is the only happiness in Hester Prynne’slonely life. Without a child to care for, teach, and love, Hester would have long ago given her souland life over to evil. When town authorities, shocked at Pearl’s apparent belief that she wasplucked from a rose bush and not created by God, recommend she be taken from Hester andplaced in a school, Hester responds with the following: “God gave me this child!... She is myhappiness, she is my torture none the less! Pe...
