Monica Lewinski's The Scarlet Letter

Quote 1: "Here, in a word, - and it is a rare instance in my life, - I had met with a person thoroughly adapted to the situation which he held." Introductory, pg. 24

The Scarlet Letter is a well known novel written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The novel is composed and written in Salem and Concord, as well as Boston, Massachusetts in the late 1840's. The narrator of the novel is in an omniscent state, meaning he knows more about the characters than the characters know about themselves. Although the narrartor is omniscent, he also makes sure to include his ideas and opinions on situations, making him also greatly subjective. Being subjective, as well as omniscent, historical fiction along with a story displaying constant symbolism is evident.

For example, teenagers do not understand the affect a small text during driving can have until the car crashes or someone gets hurt or even dies. Because most perpetrators did not know Monica Lewinsky or did not know Hester Prynne personally, it becomes less of an issue being that one is just adding onto the public opinion or conversation. Unfortunately, in modern society, there is not a way to stop the public shaming or cyberbullying, but for a person to experience the pain or just have sympathy towards the person can help understand the effect of being put onto a scaffold and the consequences of dehumanizing a

Statistics show that public humiliation is one of the most common fears. As many admit to this fear, many also grasp to this concept and shame one another for absurd conditions. In the Puritan Era, many methods were used to publicly shame someone for their wrong doing. One of their common methods was to openly tell their “sin” to the whole community. One of their extreme approaches was hanging someone. This showed the public to follow the regulations of the town and do not do anything against them. Fast forward to modern times, the scheme of humiliating one another changed drastically. For instance, many occurrences pertain from social media. In 1994, the first site of social media was created. From this point on, millions of different sites

The Scarlet Letter Introduction The Scarlet Letter is a classic tale of sin, punishment, and revenge. It was written in 1850 by the famous American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. It documents the lives of three tragic characters, each of whom suffer greatly because of his or her sins. Shot Plot The story begins with Hester Prynne, a resident of a small Puritan community, being led from the town jailhouse to a public scaffold where she must stand for three hours as punishment for adultery. She must also wear a scarlet A on her dress for the rest of her life as part of her punishment. As she is led to the scaffold, many of the women in the crowd complain that

It’s common to argue that a perpetrator “deserves” to be shamed, but in fact human psychology doesn’t work this way. Many pedophiles, for instance, recognize that that they are inexorably—even biologically—bound to impulses that they themselves loathe. Does the shaming—through public registries for example—cause the pedophile to reform? Unlikely. Does it deter others from engaging in pedophilic acts, or does it drive them to darker corners and sneakier tactics?

Public shaming has been around for a long time. Back in the 1700s it was very popular, especially with the Puritans. Literature such as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible show examples of such public shaming and punishments. Hester Prynne is made an example by the colony’s leaders by forcing her to wear a red A on her clothing. By doing this along with public hangings seen in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, people would follow the rules because they do not want to end up like the example set before them. Although there are not public hangings like in The Crucible, at least not in America, there are still forms of public shaming that are sentenced by courts. Public shaming as a punishment to criminals can be fair and just depending upon the crime and whether the judge takes things too far; it can also be effective in making the criminal not want to do what he did again.

In the novel The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, all of the characters possess specific traits of the seven deadly sins which are lust, gluttony, greed, pride, wrath, envy and sloth. My character Roger Chillingworth possesses the sins, greed, wrath and pride. I will attempt to make a connection between the sins committed by Chillingworth and his motivation behind those sins and sins committed by people in our world today. For example, one could compare wrath to the destructive and horrible feats of today’s murders that feel they have been treated unjustly, therefore, take the lives of those they feel have wronged them. Another comparison is the effects that pride can have on today’s role models such as professional athletes and the result of greed on some of today’s entertainers who need more and more stuff, such as cars, homes, jewels and the list goes on and on.

The only thing Stryker and I can agree is the old way of public shaming doesn't work. In this day and age, you can't do things like that anymore, as it simply doesn't work. as Stryker says scarlet letters stopped working because with planes, trains and automobiles, if people were being shamed they just left and moved somewhere else. “So we turn instead to public humiliation, an organic form of social control that never went away completely,” (Stryker 2.) The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne depicts a woman pregnant out of wedlock and she gets branded with a red A for adultery, a very clear case of public shaming and humiliation. Like Stryker discuss scarlet letters just don't work anymore. If that happened today (even though it wouldn't) she would just leave town and live somewhere else. So I do agree with Stryker that things like that are a way of the past. Doxxing is the new world of public shaming and it's working. As seen in this story from the Charlottesville riots in august. “Logan Smith, the man behind the Twitter account @YesYoureRacist, began posting photos of alleged white supremacist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia—and gained over 300,000 followers in a single weekend, some of whom helped him expose the identities of the protesters. One of the people Smith outed has since been fired

1. Hester Prynne is portrayed as a Christ figure in The Scarlet Letter. She displays self-sacrifice, saintlike features, and exemplifies some biblical teachings throughout the book. The first, which is self-sacrifice, is shown when Hester is standing on the scaffold in front of the whole town and will not uncover the other participant in the adultery. Reverend Wilson questions her of this man that helped commit this crime, “Speak out thy name! That, and thy repentance, may avail to take the scarlet letter off thy breast” (60), with the attempt to bribe her by promising the possible removal of the scarlet A. She refuses to sell out her secret lover with the responses “Never” and “I will not speak!” (60) but the young clergyman keeps questioning Hester. She is willing to take the fall for the both of them and stand up there with the humiliation of their actions. “It is too deeply branded. Ye cannot take it off. And would that I might endure his agony, as well as mine!” (60). This reinforces her firmness in protecting Dimmesdale and from completely razing his name as a minister by telling the public. She is willing to endure the ignominy from the public without exposing him, which is an example of self-sacrifice. With saying that, Hester is like Jesus Christ because he was crucified for our sins as a form of self-sacrifice so we could have eternal life and go to Heaven. Hester's actions for Dimmesdale caused her much more agony and humiliation by the public because of the

One main theme present in the work "The Scarlet Lette" is that of sin and guilt. Nathaniel Hawthorne attempts to show how guilt can be a form of everlasting punishment. The book represents sin and guilt through symbolism and character development. In his novel, "The Scarlet Letter", Nathaniel Hawthorne explains how the punishment of guilt causes the most suffering among those affected.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written in 1849. This novel won him much fame and a good reputation as a writer. In writing The Scarlet Letter, Hawethorne was creating a form of fiction he called the psychological romance. A psychological romance is a story that contains all of the conventional trappings of a typical romance, but deeply portrays humans in conflict with themselves. The Scarlet Letter won Hawthorne great critical acclaim, and even today the book remains on the best seller list. The Scarlet Letter is so popular maybe because generations of readers can interpret it and see subtle meanings that somewhat reflect their own lives. Each of us, has

Demi Moore's portrayal of Hester in the movie The Scarlet Letter proved her worth as a feminist actress, which led her to other, more modern female empowerment roles ranging from Striptease to GI Jane.  But in the moviemakers 'attempt to give the story what they might think is a little modern flavor, they barbarously misconstrued the theme, and thus the importance, of a timeless story.  In the novel, there can be little doubt that Hester is a strong person, but the movie made her out to be a martyr for women's rights.  The female empowerment theme of the movie also inevitably led to the characterization of Christians and their ethics as tyrannical and oppressive because the feminist

The difference between prides is that; respectable pride symbolizes ones dignity and confidence and bad pride represents the fatal sin of power that is conceit and overconfidence. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter the author coveys that the protagonists and antagonists form a theme that is related with the Biblical story of original sin. This novel is about how a woman who is named Hester Prynne wears the letter ʹʹAʹʹ to show everyone in the Puritan society, that what she has done was very wrong. On the other hand her husband, who is Roger Chillingsworth, is out to seek revenge on her lover who is Arthur Dimmesdale. The author of this novel Nathaniel Hawthrone conveys this novel by stating this quote in the twentieth chapter,

"The happiness of the wicked passes away like a torrent!" This quote from Jean Baptiste Racin summarizes The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne in one sentence. The novel's main focus is on three main characters and how the sins they commit affect their lives in the strict Puritan town of Boston around the year 1642. Hawthorne was very knowledgeable of his Puritan ancestry and shows it by incorporating some important thoughts and traditions into this story about sin and confession. Throughout the novel, the physical, social, mental and emotional changes that result from sin in the lives of the characters are never positive and the outcome of their spiritual