These previous researches do help a lot to further analyze the character Pearl, while it is still insufficient since it didn’t go in the character so thoroughly that there still remain many aspects of the character which can be further discovered and discussed.

Also, many researchers studied the ambiguity and symbolism within the novel by analyzing the storyline and the main characters. Ambiguity exists everywhere in the story. All the main characters have their own ambiguities. Hester Prynne is sinful to commit the adultery, yet she is able of the needle works and always there to help others like an angle. Arthur Dimmesdale is the representative of truth and atonement, yet he was actually a hypocritical man. Roger Chillingworth is evil and cruel, yet actually he is also the victim who receives his wife’s betrayal. Also, Pearl is an elf-like child, but at the meantime, she is so pure. The ambiguities on the four main characters have been discussed. Elaine Tuttle Hansen explains that “in the first half of the novel proper, Hawthorne uses various stylistic devices to sustain the narrator’s role as artist of the ambiguous” (1975:148). And Fred H. Marcus notices that “while further allegorical implications might be pursued, Hawthorne’s ambiguities permeate the novel suggesting that absolutes of allegory be evaluated with caution” (1962:253). Yet few truly focus the discovery of ambiguity and symbolism on analyzing the illegal child Pearl. There still remains a lot to be further discovered and discussed.

2. About the Symbolism

2.1 Symbolism as a Whole

Symbolism, as a coherent system, can never be discussed solely without the reference to symbols which absolutely is the fundamental of symbolism. Take symbolism as a high-rise, then symbols are the bricks. According to A Glossary of Literature Terms compiled by M.H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, a symbol is anything that signifies something else in general (2012: 358). While in literature, symbol is applied to the word or phrase that signifies or suggests something beyond itself. With years of application, symbols can simply be pided into two types, one is conventional symbol, and the other is the private symbol. For conventional symbols, we can call to mind many instances, like Cupid generally signifies love, while the crow is likely to be related with ill omen. Yet the private symbols mainly emerge from their writer’s extraordinary thoughts and arrangements. One single word or phrase may differ in using or signifying in works of different writers, like the rising sun in one setting signifies the hope and bright future, while in another setting indicates the passing of time and the coming of the dismal end.

2.2 Symbolism in the Novel at First Glance

As Hawthorne is said to be a talented writer that manipulates different symbols well in his works, it is not difficult for readers to find out that there are a large amount of symbols in the novel The Scarlet Letter. Also, the symbols which are found in this novel can be briefly taken into two categories, one is conventional and the other is private. For the combining application of conventional symbols and private symbols, we can notice directly from the setting of the opening scene. Around the prison, which signifies sin and evilness, it is not strange that there are various weeds or rank grasses. However, on the one side of the prison, there is a rose-bush which keeps alive in the dark and gloomy circumstance and grows vigorously in the month of June. In general, it is common for us to accept prison as a symbol of sin and evilness, since it is a place where the criminals or wrongdoers are kept in captivity. Yet, the rose-bush which almost rooted at the prison’s threshold has its private implication. For one side, it suggests that there will be a new-born strength in the dark society which after a long tough struggle brings morality as a newly emerging force to enlighten the society; for the other side, it foreshadows that the main character in the story, though is born and grows up in the dark society, though suffers great slander and humiliation, will still succeed in living through her life with her strong belief and with her insist to the definite morality.