an essay has a scholarly purpose, but written correctly it is as much art as formula for proving a point. i was told to write about the Scarlet Letter:

The Portrait of Hester
What does Hester look like? “She had dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and a face which besides being beautiful from regularity of feature and richness of complexion, had the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes” (46-47) but there is no picture. Where there should be the curve of lips, the shadow of a cheekbone and the whisper of lashes I have only a haze surrounded by chestnut and branded with a crimson blot. Through Hawthorne’s words I can hear her blood careening through her veins when she first mounts the platform and I can feel the vacuum of breath as she’s summoning the courage in the forest to call out to Dimmesdale. I can feel Hester’s presence but I cannot see her.
I want to know if she has a dusting of freckles or a beauty mark on her cheek screaming for attention. Does she have black eyes like an impenetrable night storm, the glossy sheen of a raven’s feathers or the calm darkness of the forest’s shadows? As I read Hester was a definite character. Defined because she was easy to recognize as not the timid Dimmedale or precocious Pearl. Hester was not tangible physically but a palpable force because of her guiding presence; A mother figure, not because she bore a child, but because she had such a strong perseverance. But now that I’ve turned the final page of the book I’m no longer able to recall her. She’s the friend you haven’t seen in years and years. But if you were to accidentally run into that friend one day, you’d recognize them - You’d stand back for a moment, pondering to yourself, letting your brain focus and tumble and reorganize memories until you were positive it was your friend.
It shouldn’t matter that I can’t see Hester’s face; I have lived her emotions and learned her lessons along side her. I can revisit her whenever I have the Scarlet Letter with me. Likely there’s some deep physiological reason I want to see her, something to do with connection and herd instincts I’d assume, but more likely this grief comes from the absurd cover of my book. It’s an illustration likely picked by an editor in New York, An individual who in all likelihood did not read the book. The cover is a stoic looking woman in a red hood (comparable to a depressed twenty something dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood). The hood may be red, but simply red isn’t relevant to The Scarlet Letter. Hester doesn’t have a hooked witch’s nose, or furrowed brows and she’d absolutely never be wearing crimson. She dressed her daughter, Pearl, in red but never herself.
Pearl.
That misguided New York editor may have accidentally picked a perfect cover. One would initially interpret the cover as Hester; after all she is the character of most importance, bearer of the letter, and the only woman about the age of the portrayed woman on the cover. At least, she’s that age throughout ninety percent of the book until the conclusion which is much later. Little Pearl though is the living letter in her youth. “Her mother, in contriving the child’s garb, had allowed the gorgeous tendencies of her imagination their full play; arraying her in a crimson velvet tunic of a peculiar cut, abundantly embroidered with fantasies and flourishes of gold thread. So much strength of coloring, which must have given a wan and pallid aspect to cheeks of a fainter bloom, was admirably adapted to Pearl’s beauty and made her the very brightest little jet of flame that ever danced upon the earth.” (90) This cover, one that I once loathed with a torrid passion for presenting me with a false and betraying portrait of Hester could actually be a welcomed insight. The unidentified woman could be an unintended perception into who Pearl became. Rather then examine how Hester got to the letter, like Christopher Bigsby did in his book Hester, I’d like to imagine how the letter sculpted Pearl. Hawthorne says that she married a foreign lord, but did the little sprite find a fellow fairy, or did she make a mistake similar to her mother’s? If we interpret the cover to be Pearl, is her solemn look from the contemplation of her past or from a sorrow of her present? Maybe her wild ways have simmered in her age and in giving life to her own child she has matured beyond her original zeal. Maybe it’s somber because she misses her far away mother, the only companion of her youth, and shaper of her identity.
Pearl has soothed me. In giving a name to that once ambiguous painting I can lay Hester’s mystery to rest. While I still would like to see her, to know the flavor of her physical image, maybe its better she stays an enigma. She can float on the outskirts of my thoughts, an apparition that will stay with me long after I’ve lost my book and the picture of Pearl. The impression of Hester’s spirit will guide me for the future, because it is so much stronger then a two dimensional image of her could ever be. And when I see her again years from now I’ll halt for a moment. Memories will flash by, and long forgotten feelings will pulse down my nerves, and I will know it is Hester