Guilt can drive people into rough directions yet guilt can also inspire good intentions and create moral stability that can help someone become the person they would like to be. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," Hester, a young and beautiful woman, has an affair with an unknown man in her town while her husband is away. Her daughter Pearl becomes the most important aspect of her life after she is born and is the only thing that brings her any light or happiness. Although Hester feels immense regret for her actions, she becomes inspired by Pearl to do good and tries to expel her guilt. Pearl acts indirectly as Hesters moral compass, because every time Hester looks at Pearl she sees the potential good in herself. Thus, In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Pearl exists solely as a symbol of Hester's sins, positive traits, and past self, not as a character in her own right. .
Pearl is compassionate solely to her parents. As they both go through their different struggles, Pearl is the one thing that has not let them down. The relationship she has with her mother is uncanny because of the connection between them. She knows that Hester wears the scarlet letter for the same reason that the minister keeps his hand over his heart, so she is always protecting her mother (122). Knowing that Chillingworth is only trying to harm Hester and Dimmesdale, when she encounters him with her mother, she tells her mom to leave because the old Black Man with catch [her].but he cannot catch little Pearl (Hawthorne 92). Although she does not know who her father during her early years, Pearl almost seemed to sense that he was a good man because of how she reacts with him. When she firsts meets him when she is a baby, she [holds] up [her] little arms, with a half plaintive murmur, meanwhile she started crying when Chillingworth came near her (47). The way that Pearl acts as the only source of pureness and goodness only towards Hester and Dimmesdale shows that her character is not developed enough, and is merely a symbol of both their happiness and sin.
