She's Worth More Than a Diamond Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Hester Prynne, a powerful heroine in Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel The Scarlet Letter. Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is a mysterious character serving entirely as a vehicle for symbolism. From her introduction as an infant on her mother's scaffold …showed first 75 words of 1007 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1007 total…of the deepest and most absolute love imaginable. In the end, it is Pearl who kisses Arthur Dimmesdale, as he lies dying on the scaffold, having admitted his sin. She breaks a spell that had been over the couple in adultery, completing her service as a symbol of pain and hardship, but more importantly a symbol of love, beliefs, and the deep bond between two lovers condemned by the strict beliefs of the Puritan days.