In the continuation of Scarlet Letter, the scarlet A continues to inflict a burden upon Hester Prynne. As Hester is released from the prison, imagery depicts Hester’s mood as she is released through the prison doors. Being free from prison, however, does not mean that Hester is free from the guilt inflicted upon her, as “she came forth into the sunshine, which, falling on all alike, seemed, to her sick and morbid heart, as if meant for no other purpose than to reveal the scarlet letter on her breast.” Hester embarks on her journey to rid herself of the mockery she faced previously from the town, but the “burning of the A upon [her] bosom” grew fierier each day. Throughout all of the people that looked upon the ‘A’, the spot “never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture” as Hester never got used to the letter branded into her. The metaphor in the “law which condemned” her was a “giant of stern features, but with vigor to support, as well as to annihilate” means that the law which once held Hester up through the standing on the scaffold, could now obliterate her as she walks out of the prison completely alone.
When Hester and Pearl arrive at the Governor’s house, Pearl sees a reflection of Hester in a mirror and in an old headpiece. In the reflection in the “convex mirror, the scarlet letter was represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance.” No matter how much Hester tries to appear larger than the sin she committed, the burning remnants of scarlet letter will continue to make Hester feel as if she is “hidden behind it.”
A biblical allusion is used to compare Hester to Cain, who was the first murderer branded by God to warn others of him, similarly like the brand administered upon Hester to warn others of her adultery.
When Hester gets out of prison, she resides in an isolated “thatched cottage” on the “outskirts of town” where she spends much of her time sewing clothing items for people of the town. Hester sewed for many people and many occasions, but the one occasion Hester was not allowed to sew anything for was a “white veil to cover the pure blushes of a bride” for “society frowned upon her sin” and did not think that a wedding between two pure people should be cursed by the needlework of an adulterer. Since Hester sewed her own “A” upon her clothing to symbolize her sin, the sewn clothing worn by other people in the town makes the reader wonder if the sewn articles of clothing symbolize how each person in the community is sinful, and should be marked as well.
In chapter 6, the reader is introduced to Hester’s daughter, Pearl. The name Pearl was “not expressive of her aspect, which had nothing of the calm, white, unimpassioned luster that would be indicated by the comparison” but rather because Pearl came about because of a “great price” her mother had to pay and is also “her mother’s only treasure.”
Although Pearl is known as a beautiful girl, when Hester looks Pearl in the eyes, she sees “an evil spirit possessed the child” while looking into the “abyss of her black eyes”. Pearl then questions as to where she came from, Hester replies by saying Pearl came from “Thy Heavenly Father”, but Pearl disagreed, and said that she “has no Heavenly Father”. Hester then thought back on when the “neighboring townspeople” said that “poor little Pearl was a demon offspring, such as, ever since old Catholic times, had occasionally been seen on earth, through the agency of their mother’s sin, and to promote some foul and wicked purpose.” Could Pearl possibly be the work of witchcraft to punish Hester even more of her sins?
Although Pearl has demonic eyes, she has the beauty of Hester, along with a peculiar personality. No matter how pure Pearl’s moral life had originally been, her life had now “taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light, of the intervening substance.” Hester could detect her own “wild, desperate, defiant mood, the flightiness of her temper, and even some of the very cloud-shapes of gloom and despondency that had brooded in her heart” within the personality of Pearl. Hester dresses Pearl in a “crimson velvet tunic, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread”, to make her appear exactly like the ‘A’ that is embroidered upon Hester’s breast. Each clue of Pearl embodying traits of Hester’s sinful and lustful personality along with Hester’s beauty and resembling the appearance of the scarlet letter, the reader undoubtedly realizes that Pearl is “the scarlet letter endowed with life!” Why did Hester make her child resemble the most guilt ridden symbol embedded within Hester’s mind? Was it because “the red ignominy [was] so deeply scorched into her brain, that all her conceptions assumed its form”?
When asked where Pearl came from, she replies by saying that she was “picked off the rosebush by the prison door.” The significance of equating the origin of Pearl to the rosebush not only depicts the physical connotation of the rose, being that Pearl is beautiful on the outside just like the rose, yet has a “thorny” personality, but also from when, in the first chapter, the reader is first brought upon the rosebush. The reader learns that the rosebush could possibly be growing by the prison from Anne Hutchinson, who committed a sin in some people’s eyes, as she broke free of the Puritan rule and believed in individual freedom. The rosebush is a symbol of sin, yet also a symbol of hope and individuality, much like the personality of Pearl.
In the very end of chapter 8, Pearl’s personality alters when Mr. Dimmesdale defends Hester’s right to keep her daughter. Morphing from Pearl’s usual wild and non sentimental self, Pearl goes up to Dimmesdale and “taking his hand in the grasp of both her own, laid her cheek against it; a caress so tender, and withal so unobtrusive” that Hester wondered “Is that my Pearl?” Could the affection Pearl has towards Dimmesdale foreshadow that he could in fact be her father?
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