Pearl’s role in Hester’s life is to personalize and reinforce Hester’s naturally emotional self, while Dimmesdale serves as a symbol of intellect and social order.

Arguments:
Pearl= small girls (seed), will become a WOMAN, incapable of being changed, incapable of sin for she knows not what sin is

Dimmesdale=older, MAN, constant turmoil, sinner & a condemner

Hawthorne brings the reader to seek a balance between emotion and intellect, one that has YET TO BE FOUND

p. 195-198, Priest, elderly widow, young virgin, pure children, drunken sailors

p. 204, “Children have always a sympathy in the agitations of those connected with them; always, especially, a sense of any trouble or impending revolution, of whatever kind, in domestic circumstances; and therefore Pearl, who was the gem on her mother’s unquiet bosom, betrayed, by the very dance of her spirits, the emotions which none could detect in the marble passiveness of Hester’s brow.”

p. 213, “There was no feebleness in step, as at other times; his frame was not bent; nor did his hand rest ominously upon his heart. Yet, if the clergyman were rightly viewed, his strength seemed not of the body. It might be spiritual, and imparted to him by angelic ministrations.”

p. 229, “Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor forever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl’s errand as a messenger of anguish was fulfilled.

p. 223, “it is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders on individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate