The Scarlet Letter

Why won't Pearl show any affection to Dimmesdale? Why does she want him to walk with them hand-in-hand in the marketplace?

ch 19

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Pearl is not content for her father to embrace her in the woods and return to his town as the revered minister. Instead, she wants to be held out on the scaffold as his child and wants to celebrate the letter on his chest as much as she loves the one on her mother’s. She is a child of two scarlet letters, but Dimmesdale has not revealed his, and her mother comes dangerously close to disposing of hers. Pearl, as the “moral blossom,” will not have it. Until her parents have brought her out of shame, she will not set them free.

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http://www.gradesaver.com/the-scarlet-letter/study-guide/section6/