The absence of light in her life had come from being labeled an adulteress by the Puritan community, a sin that ostracises her and her daughter. Pearl is able to recognize that Hester is often physically shadowed, while she herself is able to have the sunshine on her. Pearl and Hester are playing in the forest, and as Pearl tries to catch the sunlight, she tells her mom, " The sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom" ( Hawthorne 162). The letter A attached to Hester's dress causes her to remain in darkness. The physical manifestation of sin repels sunlight around her while Hester understands that she has no light of her own. In the forest, Hester notices Pearl is playing in the light and feels " estranged from pearl; as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it" (184). Pearl's attraction to sunlight contracts her mother's absence of it. Despite being born from sin, Pearl is determined to live in the purity of light. Hester does not reach out for the sunlight because she is tainted by the blackness of her
The absence of light in her life had come from being labeled an adulteress by the Puritan community, a sin that ostracises her and her daughter. Pearl is able to recognize that Hester is often physically shadowed, while she herself is able to have the sunshine on her. Pearl and Hester are playing in the forest, and as Pearl tries to catch the sunlight, she tells her mom, " The sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom" ( Hawthorne 162). The letter A attached to Hester's dress causes her to remain in darkness. The physical manifestation of sin repels sunlight around her while Hester understands that she has no light of her own. In the forest, Hester notices Pearl is playing in the light and feels " estranged from pearl; as if the child, in her lonely ramble through the forest, had strayed out of the sphere in which she and her mother dwelt together, and was now vainly seeking to return to it" (184). Pearl's attraction to sunlight contracts her mother's absence of it. Despite being born from sin, Pearl is determined to live in the purity of light. Hester does not reach out for the sunlight because she is tainted by the blackness of her