What Does Pearl Symbolize In The Scarlet Letter

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Pearl is born an outcast from the Puritan community, who consider her an “imp of evil” and a “product of sin” (84). She represents the forbidden act of passion of her parents, one that defies the fundamental morals of Puritan society in the 17th century. She serves as a constant reminder of the adulterous act of her mother, both in the eyes of the guilty and all those who they meet. Thus, she is a living symbol of sin, an extension of the scarlet letter with which she is so obsessed. They both embody the immorality of sin, and both act as constant reinforcement of the stern Puritan ideals of the day -- or so it would initially seem.
This view, however, is false; Pearl is far more than a symbol of

This freedom allows her to act as a sort of conscience for her parents. Pearl constantly tries to get her father to stand with them and acknowledge her as his daughter, not for selfish reasons, but because she knows it is the only way for him to achieve salvation. She understands that that the Puritan of self-punishment for sin is deadly, and urges him instead to cast aside his secret burden. However, both Dimmesdale and Hester were raised in an oppressive puritan society and cannot break away from it, despite how hard they try. Although she tries to push people like Dimmesdale to break from the Puritan mold, they are stuck because they lack her spark. Pearl on the other hand, does not need the secrecy of the woods to let her hair out of its cap and be her complete self, like her mother does. No, that spark is within her, and, whereas her parents have only vague notions of breaking free, she has the actual strength of character to put them to practice. When Dimmesdale finally does reveal his fatherhood, she kisses him and “a spell is broken”, finally making Pearl into a woman and relieving her of the burden of saving her father, allowing her to “grow up amid human joy and sorrow” (234). Dimmesdale’s revelation also ends Pearl’s errand as “a messenger of anguish” (234) for her mother, for she kept both her husband Chillingworth and Dimmesdale’s secrets for them for

She is the only character with a happy ending, which is an intentional move by Hawthorne. He glorifies Pearl, for she is the one who ends up successful at the end. Her father dies and her mother moves back to Boston, neither of them ever truly escaping the confines of the society that weighed them down for so many years. They cannot, for they can never truly rid themselves of their Puritan upbringings and thus be free like Pearl. She represents true morality, not the warped kind the Puritans preach. She is both the scarlet letter, a reminder of sin and a guide to salvation, and the rosebush, a symbol of morality and