Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter followed the lives of Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale. Their daughter Pearl represented the guilt and gifts brought upon them during their time together in Boston. Hester and Dimmesdale’s sinful actions resulted in the birth of Pearl. In the beginning of the story, the Bostonians condemned Hester for committing adultery. To protect Dimmesdale from public humiliation and the torture of Roger Chillingworth, she refused to reveal that Dimmesdale was the biological father of Pearl. As the story progressed, Dimmesdale’s guilt increased. Due to his respected reputation as a reverend, he initially refused to admit his sin to the public. He could not be associated with Pearl, which the Bostonians …show more content…
In fact, when he ventures his way from the forest to the town, he attempts to stay away from the people that ask for his wisdom because he knew that he could accidentally corrupt them. All of these events were rooted from the simple action of producing the illegitimate child of Hester, Pearl. The birth of Pearl brought two motivations to Hester and Dimmesdale. Hester is motivated to live for Pearl. Throughout the first half of the story, Hester often considered to flee from Boston and return to “Old England.” However, she did not want to leave Pearl and Dimmesdale behind; Dimmesdale would have been tortured by Chillingworth, and Pearl would have been tortured by the church’s insistence that she was created by the devil. As a result, she took shelter in a Bostonian cottage and lived with Pearl and near Dimmesdale. Whenever Pearl got herself into trouble, Hester and Dimmesdale protected her. For example, when Reverend Wilson concluded that Pearl was a child from the devil, Hester came to her defense, claiming that “God gave [her] the child” and “Pearl keeps me here in life!” (Ch8) Dimmesdale supported Hester’s claim, saying that “it was meant for a blessing— for the one blessing of her life!” While Pearl seemed to be a torture and pain to the couple, she was actually a gift “from the hand of God, to work in many ways upon her heart, who pleads so earnestly and with such bitterness