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Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s powerful heroine Hester Prynne. Her daughter Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is an enigmatic c ....

Middle of Essay
.... Prynne is her mother’s most precious possession and her only reason to live, but also a priceless treasure purchased with her life. Pearl’s strange beauty and deeply enigmatic qualities make her the most powerful symbol some feel Hawthorne ever created. The product of Hester’s sin and agony, Pearl was a painfully constant reminder of her mother’s violation of the Seventh Commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. Hester herself felt that Pearl was given to her not only as a blessing but a punishment worse than death or ignominy. She is tormented by her daughter’s childish teasing and endless questioning about the s ....