'Pearl' and the Perfect Woman Sara Manlowe College

A central focus of Pearl is perfection; ‘my precious pearl without a spot’ (1.4.48), ‘that gem so clean’ (1.4.47) – the titular pearl is rarely mentioned without some corresponding description of its flawlessness. The language describing the Pearl-Maiden both echoes and elevates this divine perfection: ‘Like glistening gold that one does shear, / So shone that gem on distant shore’ (2.14.165-66). She is described in terms of jewels, and light. There is no human element that is not countered by its descriptor, ‘faultless face’ (2.15.169), for example. The reader’s first image of her is ‘a child…enshrined’ (2.14.161), which carries less of life in it than it does a pale, frozen statue surrounded by beauty. The girl herself is almost incidental; she is only an extension of this dazzling radiance, a sun in the shape of a girl. Perfection, then, through the Pearl-Maiden, is equated to the lack of anything human. She is perfect because she resembles a flawless pearl; she is perfect because, as she is assumed to be the dreamer’s dead daughter, she died before the world could mark her in any way; she is perfect because her humanity is dead. The Pearl-Maiden’s divine perfection hinges upon her lack of resemblance to any real, living...