“ God gave me the child… She is my happiness!- she is my torture, non the less… Ye shall not take her! I will die first” (Hawthorn 103).

After she has lost everything in her life Hester has only one thing to hold on to, and it is her daughter Pearl. Pearl is the greatest treasure that Hester has ever received in her life and she would let no one separate them. When someone is in complete isolation the smallest things have a great deal of meaning to them and Pearl is Hester’s life line. Pearl is like an escape for her mother. Hester takes care of her and centers her life around Pearl and if the reverends were to take Pearl away from Hester she would have nothing to live for. The amount of shame Hester feels is equivalent to how much she loves her daughter. In a town where she is constantly feeling constantly reminded of her actions, it is easy for her to turn around it around into loving her daughter. In her life Hester has two things to remind her of her crime. One is towns’ people and the other her daughter. The people of Boston reject Hester and make her feel worthless, while her daughter loves and value her mother. If they were to take Pearl away from her, she will no longer be dependent of her Hester and probably will not values her as much. After, a few years in the care of the Puritans she will reject the very person who loved her because of her sin. To Hester that itself would be death.

“ The young minister, on ceasing to speak, had withdrawn a few steps from the group, and stood with his face partially concealed… while the shadow of his figure… was tremulous with vehemence of his appeal” (105).

It is evident to the readers that Reverend Dimmesdale felt a great spur of agony, when Hester turn to him for help when the other reverend wanted to take her child away. When the argument ended, he feels ashamed of his cowardice and hid behind a curtain. It must kill him to see the amount of courage it takes for Hester to get through one simple day as an outcast; while he is still living a normal life of as someone who is constantly revered for his good judgment and righteousness. While there is a great disparity between who comes of as being and who he truly is. Dimmesdale is stuck in the whole situation because if the punishment was not so great maybe he would have had confess. He want to be strong and do what is right but who wants to stand on a scaffold and watch as people who once liked you turn against you. Nonetheless, he does not understand that the only was he could be freed from all the anguish he feels is through confession and punishment. For one he will not longer be a hypocrite. Another problem Dimmesdale has is that he wears his heart on his sleeve. After, arguing Hester’s case he goes in corner and becomes overwhelmed by the situation, even when he was speaking to her on the scaffold he displays a lot of intense emotion that some would read as nothing but for someone as dexterous as Chillingworth that raise some red flags: “ You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness” (105). Dimmesdale need to control his emotion around his new found friend because Chillingworth is seeking revenge and it appears that a friendship would not come in his way.