the scarlet letter, symbol 34

Chapter 16


“Mother,” said little Pearl, “the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom.......when I'm a woman grown?" Pearl does still not know what the A on her mother's bosom means. Because of the way she says it, I think Pearl knows it's something "bad", since they have never been as everyone else, she has always been an outsider, they don't have contact with other people(as friends. Hester only "works" for others). It seems like she also thinks that she is going to have the letter A on her bosom when she grows older, I think this is because she is grown up with her mother, and no one else, so it is what she is used to.