With Governor Bellingham and Pearl there is a duality that
they share. The leader of the Puritan community is dressed in an elaborate ruff much
like that of the "antiquated fashion of King James's reign," and "the great
hall" expresses comfort, luxury, and the ornateness of England, not the stark, plain
structures of the new community. There are richly stained-glass windows that create
prisms of beautiful light upon the polished
floors.
Likewise, Pearl is the child of sin--a grim fact.
Yet Hester, who now dresses plainly, dresses her child beautifully in crimson. When
Governor Billingham first sees her he exclaims, "What have we here!" He claims that he
has not seen such a sight "since my days of vanity, in old King James's time," when he
attended a court masquerade. The old minister, Mr. Wilson also
remarks,
"What
little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures when
the sun has been shining through a richly pained window, and tracing out the golden and
crimson images across the
floor."
Reverend Wilson asks
Pearl if she is a Christian child, or one of "those naughty elfs or fairies" that they
believe they left behind in England. Thus, Pearl symbolizes the beauty and passion that
Hester has felt in life before her sin, before her condemnation and sentence of wearing
the scarlet letter just as the governor's magnificent hall represents the gaiety and
beauty left behind in
England.
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