Article
Pearl in Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter: a Socio-Religious Perspective
AWEJ for translation & Literary Studies
(2017)
Abstract
The relationship between literature and religion is still most often confined to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and it is used to recommend the analysis of the bible as literature and religious aspect of literary works. This paper aims at exploring the possibility that literature could be an alternative means to do comparative studies of certain religious aspects from different religion. It focuses on the name and the significance of the name of Pearl in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter which alludes to the Bible. This paper however willexamine the name from different angle; that is from an Islamic point of view, for the purpose of a comparison. Pearl is also mentioned in Al-Qur’an and some Hadiths; therefore they will be the main sources to analyze the view on pearl. The result is that The Scarlet Letter shows the vivid image of Pearl in Islam. Pearls in Islam have both worldly and spiritual significance with their special characteristicssuch as being natural, beautiful, pure, invaluable and demanding great price and effort to gain them. Relating to the character of Pearl in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne depicts Pearl as having such characteristics .
Keywords
- literature and religion,
- name of Pearl,
- socio-religious,
- The Scarlet Letter
Disciplines
Publication Date
Winter February 15, 2017
Citation Information
Tatit Hariyanti and Dwi Nurhayati. "Pearl in Hawthorne’s the Scarlet Letter: a Socio-Religious Perspective" AWEJ for translation & Literary Studies Vol. 1 Iss. 1 (2017) p. 65 - 78 ISSN: 2550-1542 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/awejfortranslation-literarystudies/5/