Pearl is not meant to be a realistic character. Rather, she is a complicated symbol of an act of love and passion, an act which was also adultery. She appears as an infant in the first scaffold scene, then at the age of three, and finally at the age of seven. (Notice that three and seven are “magic” numbers.)
The fullest description of Pearl comes in Chapter 6. There, we see her at the age of three and learn that she possesses a “rich and luxuriant beauty; a beauty that shone with deep and vivid tints; a bright complexion, eyes possessing intensity both of depth and glow, and hair already of a deep, glossy brown and which, in after years, would be nearly akin to black.” We learn further that Pearl has a “perfect shape,” “vigor,” “natural dexterity,” and “a native grace,” and that in public she is usually dressed in “gorgeous robes which might have extinguished a paler loveliness.”
Her personality is described as intelligent, imaginative, inquisitive, determined, and even obstinate at times. She is a baffling mixture of strong moods, given to uncontrolled laughter at one moment and sullen silence the next, with a fierce temper and a capacity for the “bitterest hatred that can be supposed to rankle in a childish bosom.” So unusual is her behavior that she is often referred to in such terms as “elf-child,” “imp,” and “airy sprite,” all of which heighten her symbolism. Governor Bellingham likens her to the “children of the Lord of Misrule,” and some of the Puritans believe that she is a “demon offspring.”
