Love A Beautiful Sin Or A Blissful Punishment

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Sofiya Noorani

Comp 2

Ms. Post.

Love…a beautiful sin or a blissful punishment?

As the old proverb teaches, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." There can be at least two opposite ways to look at almost everything in this world. It all depends on each individual's point of view. An illegitimate child can be looked at like a gift from God or a result of your mistake. In "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathanial hawthorn, most of the people loathe and shuns Pearl, who looks like the most precious blessing, to Hester, from God. Pearl: a beautiful, resented, result of a pure sin of love.

Hester had finally found passionate love, "Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world" (Hawthorne) but her passionate desires were forbidden since her husband left her to which the towns people assumed that she was a widow. It’s amazing how an act of expressing your love to your husband is looked upon as being a good loyal wife but the same loving moment spent with a lover becomes a terribly sinful act called adultery. Pearl is the daughter of Mr. Dimmesdale and Hester Prune. According to the community, Hester is a widow of Mr. Chillingworth. Pearl means the world to Hester. As Hester mentions, Pearl "keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million fold the Power of retribution of my sin?" (Hawthorne 100). Committing adultery is a terrible sin according to the puritan community, which Hester is guilty of.

Just like her name, Pearl looks as pure and precious like the jewel. Hawthorne describes her beauty through imagery of nature. Pearl has been a reflection of beauty, purity, and grace since the day she was born. Hawthorne emphasis Pearl's "innocent life as a lovely and immortal flower" (Hawthorne 81). Although pearl is a result of Hester's mistake or her "guilty passion" (81) she is still completely by her soul and body, flawless. Whereas, the same cannot be said about her mental behavior as it’s oddly unpredictable.

Pearl seemed to be a little disturbed in her mind. While playing outside her house, she would pick out the ugly weeds very brutally and throw them in an unmerciful manner, imagining that they are the other kids from their community. It’s an expected psychological behavior since the other kids treat her very hurtfully. When heater and pearl go out in the town, all the kids stare at them and hurl mud on them for no apparent reason. Pearls outrage against them is a common reaction. The puritans believe that just because pearl is a product of adultery, she must be a bad influence for their kids and that it’s okay for the children to mistreat them.

The women in the community also have a grudge against her out of jealousy due to the fact that Pearl, just like Hester's scarlet letter, is really beautiful. Hester made her punishment look so beautiful by embellishing it so that it doesn't even look like a punishment. Pearl is just like the scarlet letter, she is a result of a sin but her beauty makes people shun it out of jealousy. Another reason puritans resent beauty is because it’s tempting. Puritans believe in having a simple and plain life.

The community believes that the child, Pearl, has no religious knowledge and that her mother is not doing a good job of raising her right. They fear that if Hester continues to raise her, she will turn out to be just like her mother someday and will commit a sinful mistake as well. The towns people decide to either take her away from her mother, Hester, or help her get trained right. So the towns’ people ask Mr. Wilson to evaluate her and find a solution. Pearl is questioned in front of many people of the town as if she is on a trial.

Mr. Wilson, one of the head members of the town’s association, asks Pearl if she knows who created her, hoping she would say "God" but instead she replies that "she had not been made at all but had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grows by the prison-door"(103). Pearl understands what her value is in the point of view of the community. She knows that people look down on her but also acknowledges the fact that she is beautiful. Mr. dimmesdale, also known as the minister of the town and secretly a father to Pearl, volunteers to train Pearl to become a better Puritan and also convinces the community to give Hester another chance and not to let her apart from her only reason to live, her child, Pearl.

As pearl grows older, Hester’s guilt grows stronger day by day. Meanwhile, Dimesdale is getting weaker by the moment. He has kept this burden on his chest form a very long time and is suffering from inside. He realizes that whatever happened with Hester was unjust and that he was equally at fault. His ministers’ duty doesn’t let him reveal the truth to the world but can’t live with this suffocation anymore. He asks Hester to run away and live a peaceful life at a strange place where no one would know about them but due to his health isn’t able to.

            No matter what the situation is in almost every love story, the female character usually gets to tolerate a little more pain and burden then the men. Hester went through many obstacles and had to live life with people looking her as a disgrace to the community. Whereas, Dimmesdale’s image in the society was a good, reputed, minister. They both did the same crime but one paid the price for it and the other just enjoyed doing the crime and got free from all the consequences that come attached with the crime. Pearl later understood this reality and that’s why her behavior with Dimmesdale is just. Although she was the result of a mistake, being a creation of God, she should’ve been accepted and loved just like all the other children in the community. Towards the end of the novel, when Dimmesdale reveals the truth and accepts Pearl as his child, Hawthorn describes it as, "Pearl dances by, "It was the scarlet letter in another form; the scarlet letter endowed with life"" (James, Pearl). Pearl dances and cries but is also overjoyed. She kisses her father and accepts him. To this Dimmesdale is at peace with happiness in his heart, taking his last breath, he dies.