-~- DIALECTICAL JOURNAL #22 -~-

"Pearl's inevitable tendency to hover about the enigma of the scarlet letter seemed an innate quality of her being. From the earliest epoch of her conscious life, she had entered upon this as her appointed mission. Hester had often fancied that Providence had a design of justice and retribution, in endowing the child with this marked propensity; but never, until now, had she bethought herself to ask, whether, linked with that design, there might not likewise be a purpose of mercy and beneficence. If little Pearl were entertained with faith and trust, as a spirit-messenger no less than an earthly child, might it not be her errand to soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart, and converted it into a tomb?--and to help her to overcome the passion, once so wild, and even yet neither dead nor asleep, but only imprisoned within the same tomb-like heart?" ((Chapter 15//PAGE 157))

The first thing in Pearl's life was the scarlet letter and it has been a point of obsession and wonder for her throughout her life. The constant pressure and questioning from Pearl that occurs to Hester has been seen mostly as petty annoyances, but perhaps there is some divine reason for her actions? Is she the embodiment of the sin and a sign from God teaching Hester of her wrong doing? It could be that the Puritan society have been going about the situation all wrong with the public shame in the form of a constant symbol on the bosom, and the public humiliation of a child should be enough. Hester has become more and more confident and apart from her sin the longer she wears the letter it seems, but it is really Pearl that has brought her back from the dark. 

Pearl is a sign of public guilt that is infinitely stronger than that of the scarlet letter. She has wondered about it since her birth because it has been the biggest object working against her in the objective in soothing her mother's pain through public shame. The letter has done little more than hold the progress Pearl made back. This is why Pearl is thought of as not just a child, but as a spirit-messenger that has brought a lesson and lifestyle from God to Hester. Her goal in life seems to be to 'soothe away the sorrow that lay cold in her mother's heart' and the tomb where Hester's pain is taken is Arthur. He feels the pain increase proportional to the decrease in shame and pain that Hester feels. Arthur is a tomb both because of his locked up secret, buried where no one will find it, and because of his inevitable doom at the hands of Chillingworth, attempting to place him in a tomb of his own after suffering a long, painful life of withholding a lie.