Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote in a time of great change in America. Americans started to shift there focus from a very strict religion known as Puritanism and started looking at the things of nature and how they related to religion and the unknown. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote many things having to do with religion and the aspects of nature. In a famous novel he wrote called the Scarlet Letter is about a woman who has an affair and becomes pregnant and has a child with the man in which she has had an affair with. That child's name is Pearl. One of the most complex and elaborate characters in The Scarlet Letter is Pearl, the daughter of Hester Prynne and Arthur Dimmesdale. Pearl is involved in the complex nature of the story, as a result of her mothers adulteress ways she is shunned from society and even looked down upon by her mother. Pearl is the Human embodiment of what the Scarlet letter A stands for. Pearl plays one of the most crucial roles within the story, Hawthorne uses Pearl as an effective character in that she is a constant reminder to Hester her mother of the sin that had been committed and why she too is shunned in the community. .
Hester interacts with Pearl with many different aspects of human emotion and treats her in many different ways at certain times. Hester displays her feelings towards Pearl by the way she dresses Pearl, and the way she treats her daughter with ambivalence. .
Hester dresses Pearl in clothing that is made of a fine crimson red velvet. With this fashion there is no way that society can not notice Pearl . Unlike what would be accustomed for Hester to want to hide Pearl and not make her as though to stick out like a sore thumb. Hester dresses Pearl in such a way to look like or become the constant walking reminder of the letter in which she wears upon her chest. Hester shows how she is trying to conform to the Puritan way of thinking and seeing Pearl as a symbol of the guilt she should feel and how she should see what Pearl really is(Baym 93).