Scarlet Letter Childhood Quotes

Childhood is an important aspect of life that shapes a person into who they are. Both negative and positive aspects will follow through to all parts of their personality during life. In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a child Pearl is born through the sin of Adultery by her mother, Hester, and her father Dimmesdale. He is the minister of their Puritan community and thus keeps his identity, as Pearl's father, hidden until his moment of death, but Hester wears a scarlet A, embellished into her bosom, to remind her of the shame and guilt. Pearl seeks answers about her father from the moment she could talk but Hester refuses answers. Since Pearl is born out of wedlock, her father's identity is hidden, and her mother lives

For example, when the Minister, Dimmesdale, meets Hester and Pearl in the woods, Pearl questions who he is and even assumes him to be the Devil. This causes Hester to order Pearl to find somewhere to wait in the woods while she and the Minister talk. It states, "The child went singing away, following up the current of the brook, and striving to mingle amore lightsome cadence with its melancholy voice. But the little stream would not be comforted....So Pearl. Who had enough of shadow in her own little life, chose to break off all acquaintance with this repining brook." (Hawthorne 126). Pearl's only way of comfort in her lonely world is through nature. At times of loneliness, one typically will look to the comfort of another person, but Pearl's loneliness forces her to turn towards nature, the only thing that is pure in her life. Her mother denies any answers that Pearl seeks about her father, and tells her to go find somewhere else to tease. Her constant questioning about her father unknowing creates hostility between her and her mother. The one person Pearl has in her life is Hester, who continuously cast her away to be alone. Another example of how Pearl's upbringing caused her to be lonely, is when she recognizes her fate of loneliness. Pearl is born an outcast since she is the product of sin in a christian world. She is a symbol of sin and therefore, does not fit in with the Puritan society that she is surrounded with. In the novel it states, "Nothing was more remarkable than the instinct, as it seemed, with which the child comprehended her loneliness: the destiny had drawn an inviolable circle around her." (Hawthorne 64). Pearl was born in isolation due to Hester and Dimmesdale sin. This caused Pearl to be tucked away in jail and the first time she saw daylight was at three months old. Even though Pearl recognized from a young age that she