Since the dim beginnings of civilization, an omnipresent struggle between “good” and “evil” has emerged among human society. Rarely manifesting complete physical form, this struggle often takes place internally, wracking the human mind with doubt and confusion. The encompassing nature of this struggle has prompted many philosophers to pose the question: is this conflict man’s inherent goodness battling the influence of outer evils, or are good deeds done in spite of man’s natural predisposition to sin? In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne discusses this intriguing question through his characters. Hester Prynne, an adulteress, refuses to reveal the identity of the father of her child, Pearl. She saves him from a likely death sentence by …show more content…
Both of them, though, have no better reminder of their wrongdoing than the direct result, Pearl. Growing up as a lonely, shunned child, she is not taught standard social rules; she does not understand what is done and what is not done. She has a very unaffected view of right and wrong, seeing straight through Dimmesdale’s pretense, such as when, she rebuffs his embarrassed attempt at friendliness in the forest, “[bathing] her forehead ... until the unwanted kiss was quite washed off” (19.37), yet she is also completely enslaved to her subconscious desires, such that they are for all intents and purposes at the very forefront of her thoughts, overcoming any realistic justifications, as when she frolics on the beach: The child flew away like a bird, and, making bare her small white feet, went pattering along the moist margin of the sea ... and peeped curiously into a pool ... forth peeped at her, out of the pool, with dark, glistening curls around her head, and an elf-smile in her eyes, the image of a maid whom Pearl ... invited to take her hand and run a race with her.