"Child, what art thou?" cried the mother.
"Oh, I am your little Pearl!" answered the child.
But while she said it, Pearl laughed, and began to dance up and down with the humoursome gesticulation of a little imp, whose next freak might be to fly up the chimney.
"Art thou my child, in very truth?" asked Hester.
Nor did she put the question altogether idly, but, for the moment, with a portion of genuine earnestness; for, such was Pearl's wonderful intelligence, that her mother half doubted whether she were not acquainted with the secret spell of her existence, and might not now reveal herself.
"Yes; I am little Pearl!" repeated the child, continuing her antics.
"Thou art not my child! Thou art no Pearl of mine!" said the mother half playfully; for it was often the case that a sportive impulse came over her in the midst of her deepest suffering. "Tell me, then, what thou art, and who sent thee hither?"
"Tell me, mother!" said the child, seriously, coming up to Hester, and pressing herself close to her knees. "Do thou tell me!"
Pearl was playing with flowers, throwing them onto the scarlet letter. Each flower reminds her the shame and deepens Hester's pain, and for a second, Hester almost see a demon when she looked into Pearl's eyes.
ReplyDeleteThe mother cries what are you to her own child but after answering, Pearl ask the same question back to Hester. The child is like a mirror and it shows especially in this chapter that Pearl is reflecting Hester. Hester sees her true self (also her choices and the result) when looking into Pearl's eyes.
The fact that Pearl is thinking about this kind of question when she is old enough to run around also shown the amount of pressure (being treated differently and get pick on) the townspeople is putting on Pearl