The Attempt to Take Pearl Away

The Attempt to Take Pearl Away is the crisis in which the Puritan magistrates of Boston, led by Governor Bellingham, move to sever the bond between Hester Prynne and her daughter Pearl, acting on the belief that the child's wild nature and the circumstances of her birth make her unfit for Hester's guardianship. The confrontation, which takes place in the great hall of Governor Bellingham's mansion, becomes the first public occasion on which Arthur Dimmesdale, the young minister, openly takes Hester's side, and it reveals the deepening entanglement of the four central figures—Hester, Pearl, Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth—in a drama of sin, secrecy, and contested motherhood.

Causes and Background

The attempt to take Pearl away grows out of the community's long-standing unease with Hester Prynne and her child. From the moment Hester emerged from prison with the infant in her arms and the scarlet letter on her breast, the Puritan townspeople regarded Pearl as an "imp of evil, emblem and product of sin." As Pearl grew into a strikingly beautiful but willful and elfish child, the suspicion that she was of demonic origin hardened into a conviction among the more rigid members of the community. The children of the settlement, having "got a vague idea of something outlandish, unearthly, or at variance with ordinary fashions" about mother and child, taunted and reviled them. The magistrates, led by Governor Bellingham, began to discuss whether it was not their Christian duty to remove Pearl from Hester's influence and place her under "wiser and better guardianship." The matter was considered serious enough to involve the highest authorities of the colony, and it was publicly debated as a question of state.

The Confrontation at the Governor's Mansion

Hester Prynne, having learned of the design against her, goes to Governor Bellingham's mansion ostensibly to deliver a pair of embroidered gloves, but with the real purpose of pleading for her child. She is accompanied by Pearl, who is dressed in a crimson velvet tunic richly embroidered with gold thread—a costume that irresistibly reminds every beholder of the scarlet letter on Hester's breast. The Governor, together with the Reverend John Wilson, the Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale, and the physician Roger Chillingworth, confronts Hester in the great hall. Governor Bellingham states the case bluntly: "The point hath been weightily discussed, whether we, that are of authority and influence, do well discharge our consciences by trusting an immortal soul, such as there is in yonder child, to the guidance of one who hath stumbled and fallen amid the pitfalls of this world." He demands to know what Hester can do for Pearl's spiritual welfare. Hester answers by laying her finger on the scarlet letter and saying, "I can teach my little Pearl what I have learned from this!" The Governor retorts that the letter is her "badge of shame" and that it is precisely because of the stain it indicates that they would transfer the child to other hands. Hester, growing pale but calm, insists that the badge has taught her lessons from which her child may benefit, even if they can profit nothing to herself.

Pearl's Examination and Hester's Plea

The Reverend John Wilson attempts to examine Pearl on her religious knowledge, asking her who made her. Pearl, in a perverse mood, refuses to answer properly and finally declares that she was not made at all but was "plucked by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison-door." This answer horrifies the Governor, who declares that a child of three years who cannot tell who made her must be ignorant of her soul and its destiny. Hester, seeing that she is about to lose her child, catches hold of Pearl and draws her forcibly into her arms, confronting the old Puritan magistrate with an almost fierce expression. She cries out that God gave her the child "in requital of all things else which ye had taken from me," and that Pearl is both her happiness and her torture, keeping her in life and punishing her at the same time. "Ye shall not take her! I will die first!" she declares. Then, by a sudden impulse, she turns to the young minister, Arthur Dimmesdale, and appeals to him directly: "Speak thou for me! Thou wast my pastor, and hadst charge of my soul, and knowest me better than these men can."

Dimmesdale's Defense of the Mother-Child Bond

Arthur Dimmesdale, pale and with his hand over his heart—a gesture that has become habitual—steps forward and speaks in Hester's defense. He argues that God gave Hester the child and also gave her "an instinctive knowledge of its nature and requirements—both seemingly so peculiar—which no other mortal being can possess." He insists that there is "a quality of awful sacredness in the relation between this mother and this child," and that to sever that bond would be to deny that the Heavenly Father has recognized a deed of sin and made no distinction between unhallowed lust and holy love. He declares that the child was meant both as a blessing and as a retribution, a torture to be felt at many an unthought-of moment, and that it was meant above all to keep the mother's soul alive and preserve her from blacker depths of sin. "Therefore it is good for this poor, sinful woman," he concludes, "that she hath an infant immortality, a being capable of eternal joy or sorrow, confided to her care." The Governor, persuaded by Dimmesdale's arguments, agrees to leave the matter as it stands, provided there is no further scandal, and orders that Pearl be examined in the catechism at proper times.

Consequences and Aftermath

The immediate consequence of the event is that Hester keeps Pearl, and the threat of separation is lifted. But the deeper consequences reverberate through the rest of the narrative. Dimmesdale's passionate defense of Hester and Pearl, which Chillingworth observes with a knowing smile, strengthens the bond between the minister and the outcast woman while deepening Chillingworth's suspicion and his determination to uncover the secret that links them. Pearl, after the confrontation, steals softly toward Dimmesdale, takes his hand, and lays her cheek against it—a rare moment of tenderness that prompts Hester to wonder, "Is that my Pearl?" The minister kisses Pearl's brow, and the child, after a moment of unwonted sentiment, laughs and goes capering down the hall. The event also marks a turning point in Hester's relationship with the community: though she remains an outcast, her courageous defense of her motherhood and Dimmesdale's intervention begin to shift public perception, laying the groundwork for the gradual transformation of the scarlet letter from a stigma into a symbol of her strength and compassion.