The Isolated Wild Child: Hawthorne's Personification Of Romanticism

Connor French
Mrs. Witcher
English III B4
11 November 2013
The Isolated ‘Wild Child’: Hawthorne’s Personification of Romanticism In The Scarlet Letter a girl is teased, tormented, and excluded. Modern television viewers may envision the character Meg from Family Guy, who is picked on by her classmates. Although the writers of Family Guy use Meg as a punch line, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses Pearl to embody romantic ideals. Because of her separation from regular society and her strong connection to nature, Pearl symbolizes the aspirational future of Romanticism. Pearl’s attributes, such as her independence and her intimacy with nature, would appeal to most Romantics. Her unique personality allows Hawthorne to portray Pearl as the light of romanticism in a world of Puritans.
Pearl’s individualism characterizes Romantics rather than Puritans.
When Mr. Wilson meets Pearl he asks “what has ailed thy mother to bedizen thee in this strange fashion” and asks if she is “a Christian child” or “one of those naughty elfs or fairies” (Hawthorne 100). This shows how Pearl’s uniqueness irks the puritan minister because he sees that she is not assimilating into their culture. It ultimately credits to the assertion that Pearl’s individualism goes against what is accepted by most Puritans. Because she is different, the Puritans view her as something evil. They find her to be “fiend-like, full of smiling malice” when she “dances up and down, like a little elf” (Hawthorne 89). Because of this, the townspeople believe Pearl to be “a demon offspring” who will “promote some foul and wicked purpose” (Hawthorne 90). Because Pearl’s attributes are unlike those of any other child in town, the Puritan townspeople worry that Pearl might be the devil incarnate. Their fear of Pearl represents their dislike of nonconformity and their inability to
change. On the other hand, the way Pearl feels at home with nature helps to define her role as a Romantic. After Pearl refuses to answer Mr. Wilson’s questions, “the child finally announced that she had been plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door” (Hawthorne 85). This reveals Pearl’s view of her connection to nature by showing how she believes she was born through the ways of the universe. This also presents how Pearl is born of sin and therefore becomes a citizen of nature because society condemns her. Likewise, there is a close relation between “Pearl and the elements of the natural world” that “shed light on Pearl’s character” and “her role in the novel” (Bloom 23). This explains how Pearl’s connection to nature is directly related to her portrayal in novel. Her relation to the universe develops her representation as a romantic in order to draw the line between puritanism and romanticism. In conclusion, Pearl’s individuality is an important part of being a Romantic by placing importance on the individual instead of society. The way she feels at home in the woods appeals to Romantics by placing a high importance on nature and its role in the novel’s development. Therefore, because of her separation from regular society and her strong connection to nature, Pearl symbolizes the aspirational future offered by Romantic ideals. Perhaps Hawthorne uses a child to embody Romanticism because when he was writing the book, Romanticism was still a relatively new school of thought and its future, like Pearls adulthood, was still an unwritten chapter.

Works Cited
Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet Letter. New York, New York: Bantam Classic, 1986. Print.
Sterling, Laurie A. "The Scarlet Letter." Bloom 's Literature. Facts On File, Inc. Web. 13 Nov. 2013