Chapter 16

“Mother...the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something on your bosom...It will not flee from me; for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!” This line that Pearl states in chapter 16, I think, really represents the "light in the darkness" that Pearl has come to be. In chapter 16 while Hester and Pearl walk into the "mystery of the primeval forest" (already setting a sort of dark or gloomy tone) they walk into almost a darkness "so black and dense...disclosed such imperfect glimpses of the sky above" but within this darkness there is a few streaks of light in which we have Pearl who "stood...in the midst of it, all brightened by its splendor". Pearl takes notice that the light radiates on her but not her mother and mocks her. When Hester attempts to stretch out and grasp the light "the sunshine vanished". The A Hester wears, even after seven years is persistent on keeping her from ever being the old youthful woman she was. But yeah anyways I thought that was pretty interesting.