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Thread: Question regarding a theme in Hawthorne's portrayal of Pearl

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    TGD9
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    Question regarding a theme in Hawthorne's portrayal of Pearl

    For a short essay I need to write, I need to find a theme that a reader might infer from Hawthorne's portrayal of Pearl as an atypical child. What can you all make of this?

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    The nature of public shame.

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    Registered User Jassy Melson's Avatar
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    I feel that Hawthorn wanted to make or portray Pearl as a demon child, as the product or spawn of evil or divinity.
    Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist.

    Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. - Albert Einstein

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    Registered User kev67's Avatar
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    According to the essay by D. H. Lawrence in the back of my copy, Pearl is the scarlet letter incarnate. She's bright, she's colourful, she's naughty, she's defiant. She's a constant reminder of her mother's adultery. She does not seem to be at all sorry or repentant.
    According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
    Charles Dickens, by George Orwell

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    On the road, but not! Danik 2016's Avatar
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    But she is also a pearl, a precious jewel. And why should she be repentant ? For existing?
    .
    "I seemed to have sensed also from an early age that some of my experiences as a reader would change me more as a person than would many an event in the world where I sat and read. "
    Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row

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    Registered User kev67's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Danik 2016 View Post
    But she is also a pearl, a precious jewel. And why should she be repentant ? For existing?
    .
    Hester should be repenting, according to her community.
    According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
    Charles Dickens, by George Orwell

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