The Scarlet Letter

2 Pages 612 Words

The scarlet letter, a book about a lady named Hester Prynne who lived in the New World, in Puritan Boston. She committed adultery, and gave birth to a child, which was named Pearl. Pearl’s father were not revealed to the public at the time when she was released from prison because Hester decided not to do so, she did not want her child to have an Earthly father but instead she wanted Pearl to have an heavenly father. Hester wanted pearl to be brought up in the normal way of the time of Puritanism. At this time they used strictness and used the rod frequently, but even though Hester at first tried to do her best at this. She quickly realised that Pearl was not going to adapt to her methods so she could not set any restrictions for her. Instead Pearl developed to be a wild child, to her mother and the rest of the Puritan community she seemed to be a little elf and they sometimes doubted that she was human, “ Hester was constrained to rush towards the child,- to pursue the little!
elf in the flight which she invariably began,- to snatch her to her bosom, with a close pressure and earnest kisses,…, as to assure herself that Pearl was of flesh and blood…” In the beginning Pearl does not show any sincere feelings towards her mother as she changes her mood so often, she seems to be very emotionless and does not show any sorrow, but that is a part of her wild nature. Her way of behaving were seen as an outcome of the adultery that Hester had committed, and now she had to live with a child that did not show any love and was a savage.
But Pearl is not completely emotionless she did show emotion when she were walking with her mother on the peninsula, and she were sent to the beach while Hester spoke with the old physician, she stopped throwing pebbles at the seabirds, as she felt sorry: “ But then the elf-child sighed, and gave up her sport; because it grieved her to have done harm to a little being that was as wild as the sea-b...