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I really like Hannah's post about the autobiographical elements being found in Dimmesdale rather than Hester. As everyone already knows I have a almost completely unfounded bias against the idea that Hawthorne was using Hester as a means to represent himself. 

In class on Thursday I didn't have a real reason for bringing up the comparison between St. Clare and Hawthorne, but I can't get it out of my mind. It seems more relevant to me now after reading Hannah's post. The relationship between Hawthorne and his mother was apparently very strong and he even had a fantasy that his mother and his sisters and he would live apart from the rest of the world in Maine. (like Hester and Pearl)

I see a comparison between Hawthorne and Pearl. His biography says that he grew up virtually without a father just as she did. And that his family did not have a large acquaintance in Salem so he had few playmates. Both Pearl and he also seemed to lean towards solitude and fantasy. So I guess for me Hawthorne was trying to draw a distinction between himself and Pearl through their similarities earlier in life. Pearl's fate is what he would have wished for himself, escaping from Salem and being free from the scarlet letter. She represents the ideal that he wasn't ever able to achieve.