Chapter 6
Hester watches Pearl mature from a newborn into a strikingly beautiful yet wildly temperamental child. Pearl is dressed in the finest fabrics Hester can afford, yet also shines in a simple, torn russet gown; her appearance constantly shifts, reflecting an inner mutability of moods—radiant, fierce, or capricious. Hester’s attempts at conventional discipline—smiles, frowns, the rod—prove ineffective; Pearl often looks at her with an intelligent, sometimes malicious gaze that makes Hester question whether she is dealing with a human child or an airy sprite. When Hester seizes Pearl, the child’s laugh both comforts and unnerves her, prompting occasional tears.
Pearl remains an outcast among the town’s other children. She observes their rough Puritan games but never joins; if addressed, she withdraws, and when the children gather, she responds with violent fits, hurling stones and shrieking in a tone Hester likens to a witch’s curse. The townspeople sense something “outlandish” about mother and child, and their scorn fuels Pearl’s bitter hatred, which she inherits from Hester’s sin.
At home Pearl animates ordinary objects—sticks, rags, flowers, pine trees—turning them into imagined characters in ever‑changing, often violent fantasies, likened to the northern lights. Her most striking fixation is on Hester’s embroidered scarlet “A.” As an infant she first reached for the letter, smiling with a knowing gleam that terrified Hester. Later, now older, Pearl gathers wildflowers and repeatedly flings them at the scarlet “A” on Hester’s breast. Hester instinctively covers her chest but, out of pride or resignation, stands erect, staring into Pearl’s fierce eyes while enduring the flower “battery.” When the flowers are spent, Pearl pauses, gazes at Hester with a fiend‑like smile, and a dialogue unfolds:
- Hester: “Child, what art thou?”
- Pearl: “I am your little Pearl!”
- Hester (half‑playfully): “Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!”
- Hester: “Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?”
- Pearl (seriously): “Thy Heavenly Father sent thee!”
- Hester (hesitant): “He did not send me! I have no Heavenly Father!”
- Hester: “He sent us all into the world… Or, if not, thou strange and elfish child, whence didst thou come?”
- Pearl: “Tell me! Tell me!” (laughing)
- Hester: “It is thou that must tell me!”
The exchange ends unresolved, underscoring Hester’s anguish and Pearl’s enigmatic nature. Throughout, Hester’s inner monologue reveals her fear that Pearl embodies the “evil” within herself, that the child’s wildness is a direct inheritance from Hester’s sin, and that Pearl’s relentless focus on the scarlet letter symbolizes the inescapable mark of their shared transgression.