Scarlet Letter MLA
...now endure. After having the child, her sin has now found her out and she will be punished. She knows that after the scaffold her punishment will continue through Pearl and the scarlet letter. “Standing on that miserable eminence, she saw her native village.”(55) In this quote she sees her past and realizes what she has done with her life and she is disappointed. She also does not feel the life she has chosen is the life she was meant to live. After these scenes, Hester realizes that she will have to live her life with Pearl who is represented by the scarlet letter. Pearl is there to make Hester ever mindful of her sin and make sure she never commits such a sin again. “See ye not, she is the scarlet letter!”(104) Pearl punishes Hester although unlike the scarlet letter itself, she also brings Hester happiness and pushes Hester in times of despair. She brings comforts not found in the scarlet letter. “She is my happiness!-she is my torture, none the less! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me to.” Pearl does the same as the Scarlet letter, only she is living and does not only punish. Pearl also loves and cares for her mother. Without Pearl, Hester’s life would have been nearly impossible to bear alone ,although it seems at times it would have been easier without her. More times than not, we see Pearl punishing and bringing shame to her mother as if she does not deserve any comfort or release from the burden she must bear. “Pearl would grow positively terrible in her puny wrath, snatching up stones to fling at them, with shrill, incoherent exclamations, that made her mother tremble because they had so much the sound of a witch’s anathemas in some unknown tongue.”(86) Although Pearl is meant to bring comfort and ...