Public Humiliation In The Scarlet Letter

Of all the horrid actions in the Scarlet Letter, none are so inexcusable as the despicable treatment of a helpless, innocent girl. The daughter of an incompetent pariah and a mentally unstable liar, little Pearl Prynne was no more than a tool to justify the misdeeds of the wicked people around her. She suffered far more than anyone else at the hands of those who should have loved her and the town over.

Merriam-Webster 's Dictionary defines adversity as, "a state or instance of serious or continued difficulty or misfortune; ex. showing courage in the face of adversity" (Merriam-Webster). Unfortunately, life is not fair. Sometimes, people are faced with serious misfortune and must adapt to survive. And sometimes in this state of adaption, the person will learn new skills from the misfortune and can apply those skills to everyday life. Nathaniel Hawthorn 's The Scarlet Letter is a story that takes place in a harsh, puritanical 17th century society called the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In reality, it was actually Boston,

(Article 1) To start off, public humiliation is a form ridicule which is a complete mockery. This is a way of degrading someone and their position while people gather to taunt, tease, and verbally abuse one emotionally. When an individual is humiliated for what he or she has done, it already hurts them deep down inside which causes them to feel destroyed or not worthy of living anymore. In the Scarlett Letter, for example, Hawthorne state that "her heart had been flung into the street for them all to spurn and trample upon.” This shows her

In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne’s punishment for adultery is to stand on a scaffold in the middle of town for three hours, and to wear a scarlet letter on her garment for the rest of her life. Today judges sometimes use public humiliation instead of traditional punishments, like jail time or community service, to punish criminals. In today’s society public humiliation should not continue be used to punish criminals in today's society.

Last week in game three of the World Series, a professional baseball player named Yuli Gurriel made a racist gesture after hitting a homerun off the opposing pitcher, Yu Darvish. Darvish is Japanese. Gurrirel then called him a Chinito which translates to little chinese boy. Although the MLB suspended Guriel for the first five games of the 2018 season, Yuli’s social media exploded with hate. People were calling him racist and were commenting that his wife should be hung and their children should be raped. Although his actions were very wrong, people should keep their comments to themselves. The act of public shaming is very obvious to most kids and adults in this generation, however, it is not new. Public shaming has been around since the beginning of time and it is evident in literature like in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. Of course, nowadays society sees it even more because of the internet and social media. Whether online or in person, public shaming is an act of bullying and punishment and it leads to depression and suicidal thoughts. The concept of public humiliation should be left in the past because of its impact on a, b, and c.

One judge could give an unfair and unnecessary outcome while the other could give a lesser sentencePrison populations have been on the rise in past years due to policies for setting prison terms. This not only affects the number of people in prison but the time that they must stay in prison. “According to the new CRS report, a growing number of these prisoners are being put away for charges related to immigration violations and weapons possession. But the largest number is for relatively paltry drug offences.” (Brion) As a result many states have attempted to modify prison terms to reduce population pressure. “Some states are currently having many discussions they would not have had 10 years ago – getting smarter on crime rather than tougher on crime. None of these moves are comprehensive enough to address the large scope of the problem, but they’re very important starting points.” (Brion)In our textbook it states six basic policy goals of sentencing processes. One of the policies is determinate sentencing, which is a set sentencing of punishment in which the parole boards can no longer release prisoners before their sentencing is up. Mandatory prison term, states that legislatures are required a prison term to be imposed for convictions for certain

Many would argue that the humiliation people feel when we turn their punishment into a show forces them to quickly change their ways, but Hester Prynne’s public humiliation in The Scarlet Letter proves that unsupportive shaming by the community does little good. Nathaniel Hawthorne starts his novel with her punishment, which involves baring her scarlet letter, the symbol of her adultery, to everyone in her community. Her peers revile and ostracize her, and in the time that they do this, she defies them, refusing to accept their shaming. In her actions, she represents everyone, as practically no one truly wants to feel embarrassed. Because of this resistance to embarrassment, nearly all people will naturally defy those who scold them in a public setting, making it less likely that the shaming will achieve its goal.

In order for the reader to understand Hester’s punishment better, Hawthorne argues that one must place the events of the story in context. This context refers to the Puritan views of shame and punishment. The excerpt serves to indicate the extent to which the townspeople believe that shame is a death-deserving crime. The townspeople regard the magistrates, deciders of punishment, as “worshipful” (48) when they punish sin. Despite the magistrates having condemned Hester to lifelong public shame, the townspeople view her crime as so severe that a lifelong sentence of shame is too little in comparison to her drastic crime.

The ruling about the constitutionality of public punishment has brought up how there is too much power being wielded by the judge and that there are no regulations or standards associated with distributing such punishment. The opposition to the alternative punishment has cited cases in which the judge misused their power and distributed public humiliation for the sole purpose to punish

The justice system that was meant to bring justice is yet controlled by like-minded individuals with the same morals, values, backgrounds, and experiences that are not common in the individuals being condemned by the apparatus. Therefore, the system is meant to get rid of individuals that are not like the majority. For instance, the founding fathers of America made rules without including all ethnicities on the committee which America gracefully follows. The founding fathers were of Caucasian descent with similar lifestyles. This apparatus was so old and raggedy run by an Old Commandant and an officer, whom did not allow the condemned man to defend himself, the officer would say “Guilt is never to be doubted.

Imagine a world in which everyone believes it is in their best interest to suppress their feelings. Most people in the modern world would undoubtedly find this prospect awful and depressing. After all, our phenomenon of instantaneous communication was conceived with the belief that humans desperately want and need to share their emotions and ideas. The widespread popularity of Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking websites seem to affirm this assumption. If one was to compare the Puritan setting of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter with this hypothetical world, they would soon realize the two

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a man who was both plagued and absorbed by the legacy of the Puritans in New England. He was related to John Hathorne, a Puritan judge during the infamous Salem Witch trials of 1692. In The Scarlet Letter, his fictional account of mid-17th century Boston presents an opportunity to examine different themes commonly associated with Puritans. Particularly the nature of sin, personal identity and the repression of natural urges are themes that appear repeatedly through the novel. While his account of this time period may not be completely historically accurate, it is indicative of the persistent thematic influence of Puritan culture on American and New England society.

In the stories of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the antagonist characters display parallel story lines through their searches for the enemy. Roger Chillingworth, the former husband of Hester Prynne and the antagonist of The Scarlet Letter, works against his wife in order to find her untold second lover. Frankenstein is a contrasting story in which an unnamed monster is the antagonist towards his human creator, Dr. Frankenstein. Yet despite quite different story lines, the two characters possess traits that exibit parallels between them. In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth displays the startling passionate characteristics of an unwavering drive to seek out his foe, madness as his focus on his search takes over his entire being, and terrible anguish when his task is unexpectedly over, all of which are reflected in the daemon created at the hand of Dr. Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley 's novel Frankenstein.

Novelist, Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his fictional novel, “The Scarlet Letter”, expresses a story about a young woman, Hester Prynne, back in the 1600s who was convicted of adultery and must now wear a big “A” on her chest to show those in the small Massachusetts Bay colony the sin she has committed. Hawthorne’s purpose is to illustrate the hardships Hester must go through for committing such act in the small colony where religion was put first. Hawthorne adopts a serious and pitiful tone throughout the novel to get the adult readers to sympathize with the main character, Hester Prynne. Though this book was written back in the 1800s and is based off a woman who’s shamed for adultery, this book can still relate to today’s world with some of

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change”(Brené Brown). In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a woman is publicly shamed for having a child with a man who is not her husband. Another example of public shame can be seen in modern day articles “Florida ‘Scarlet Letter’ Law is Repealed by Gov. Bush,” by Dana Canedy, and “Houston Couple Gets ‘The Scarlet Letter’ Treatment.” Both talk of public shame that people have had to endure in the present day. Public shaming is not an effective punishment because it is a cruel and unusual punishment, it does not deter crime, and it can emotionally traumatize the one being shamed.