Chapter 5 and 6: Pearl Touches the "A"

"Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.
"Oh, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child.
                But while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down with the humorsome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney.
"Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester….
"Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics.
"Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering.

"Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?"
"Tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell me!"
"Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!" answered Hester Prynne.

                But she said it with a hesitation that did not escape the acuteness of the child. Whether moved only by her ordinary freakishness, or because an evil spirit prompted her, she put up her small forefinger and touched the scarlet letter.
"He did not send me!" cried she, positively. "I have no Heavenly Father!" (Chapter 6, pg. 89-90)

                This is the passage where Pearl first speaks in the novel! Before this passage little Pearl is playing and throwing wild-flowers at her mother’s bosom. Causing Hester to cry out to Pearl, “Child, what art thou?” Pearl turns the question back on her mother, which was very interesting since she is so young. Pearl insists that she wants to know where she came from; she probably sees all the other children with a father. So where is hers?  Hester tells her that the “Heavenly Father” has sent her but Pearl screams to say that he did not. Therefore, Hester now wonders if her child is the child of sin that the townspeople speak of. Also, it is like Pearl is intentionally torturing her mother by touching and playing with the scarlet letter.

                Pearl is Hester’s treasure but also the evidence of her sin. A mother loves he child but sometimes she cannot explain certain things to her children.  Pearl is like a reminder to go to work; she reminds Hester of the “sin” that she committed every day.  Therefore, this passage is meaningful since it is the first time Pearl speaks in the novel and it is where Pearl confronts her mother about her origin of existence. I also think that Pearl is starting to notice that she has no father, and that her mother has committed a sin. This is because Pearl sees how the townspeople treat her mother and how she squeezes her hardly when they look at her up and down.

                Nathaniel Hawthorne uses dialogue in this passage to present the first time that Pearl speaks. However, it is not a happy dialogue but rather a reveling one. He also adds in exclamation points to emphasize that the intensity in the conversation between Pearl and Hester. Because, Pearl is asking about her origin of life.

Questions:

1.       Why do YOU think Pearl says that she was not sent by the Heavenly Father? (Ch. 6, pg. 90)

2.       Why does Hester dress Pearl with gorgeous robes? (Ch. 6, pg. 82)

3.       What is the meaning or what is meant about Hester Prynne in this quote, “She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt…” (Ch. 5, pg. 78)