Passage From the Text
" Just where she had paused the brook chanced to form a pool, so smooth and quiet that it reflected a perfect image of her little figure, with all the brilliant picturesqueness of her beauty, in its adornment of flowers and wreathed foliage, but more refined and spiritualized than the reality. This image, so nearly identical with the living Pearl, seemed to communicate somewhat of its own shadowy and intangible quality to the child herself. It was strange, the way in which Pearl stood, looking so steadfastly at them through the dim medium of the forest-gloom; herself, meanwhile, all glorified with a ray of sunshine, that was attracted thitherward as by a certain sympathy. In the brook beneath stood another child,-- another and the same,--with likewise its ray of golden light. Hester felt herself, in some indistinct and tantalizing manner, 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." (164)
" ' I have a strange fancy,' observed the sensitive minister, ' that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again.' " (164)
" ' I have a strange fancy,' observed the sensitive minister, ' that this brook is the boundary between two worlds, and that thou canst never meet thy Pearl again.' " (164)
Response to the Text
8) An interesting thought that I had while reading through this chapter was that the stream may possibly represent a different world that only Pearl is able to enter. I initially discarded this thought because I thought it was ridiculous; however, now after thinking more about it, I do believe that the brook creates a divide between worlds. In one way, the brook is the border between man and nature. The brook represents the untamed area beyond the Puritan settlement that resists the creation of the Puritan civilization. It would make sense then that Pearl is the only person that we see that crosses into this uncharted territory as she is as wild and free as the organisms in the forest. The brook could also represent a difference in time period. This thought is a little bit crazier, but Pearl is really ahead of her time as a free spirited child. She doesn't fit in with society not only because of her mother's actions, but of her own actions as well. I had the thought that Pearl would not be received as a demon child in modern times because most of her actions are relatively normal by today's standards. Pearl looking at her own reflection is representative of her knowing that she doesn't fit in with her own time, but the word refined leads me to believe that Hawthorne knew that Pearl does represent a mindset and spirit that was intolerable then, but perfectly acceptable now.