Public Punishment In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

Hester was also sentenced to standing on a scaffold with the child in front of everybody in the marketplace in the busiest part of town. The puritans believed that one of the best forms of punishment was public humiliation. Hawthorne grew up in a place and time when this was a popular form of punishment. In many cases of puritan punishment, public executions such as hangings, stoning, etcetera were used. In the Scarlet letter, Hester Prynne describes standing on the scaffold for several hours as unbearable. It was hot, everyone was staring at her, her newborn child, and her new scarlet red “A” that was to be embroidered on the bosom of everything that she would wear for the rest of her time in the

Revenge is the act of retaliating in order to get even with someone for the wrongs they have done. In the novel “The Scarlet Letter,” the author, Nathaniel Hawthorne, uses Roger Chillingworth to reap revenge on Arthur Dimmesdale for his affair with his wife, Hester Prynne. Chillingworth becomes so devoted to revenge that is all his life revolves around. Chillingworth then devotes the rest of his life to taking revenge on Dimmesdale.

Due to the Puritan’s society being highly shaped by their religious views, ministers encouraged people to become aware of others criminal inclinations, in order to prevent other sins or crimes from occurring (Miller, 2012, p. 1474). Public humiliation involved the branding of one’s hand or being forced to have walk around with a letter stitched on their clothing. For instance, one of the most familiar consequences was having to wear the letter “A” if you was charged with adultery as portrayed in the novel “Scarlet Letter.” Another way public humiliation was administrated was branding the first letter of a committed crime on the criminal’s hand. For example, when a person was caught stealing twice they were ordered to be branded with the letter “T” on the palm of their

Additionally, these texts allow for readers to gain knowledge about how punishments were done publically in order to bring shame upon the guilty party. For example, in The Scarlet Letter, Hester had to wear a scarlet letter “A” in order to make others aware of her crime (Hawthorne 51). Her scarlet letter “A” displayed her crime of committing adultery. Others put her down because the letter made them aware of her action and caused them to take action avoiding her. There were times, however, that Hester would try to escape the shame caused by her letter. During

Violence carries several meanings. It is commonly defined as an action causing pain, suffering or destruction, but can also refer to a great force, or an injustice, a wrong. Actually, violence is not only physical, it may also imply a moral dimension. In other words, it plays both on the field of the outer and inner worlds. In all cases, violence stages a relation between domination and subjection which are entangled in it. In The Scarlet Letter, violence seems to be the leading string of the plot: Hester Prynne has to undergo the ordeal of penance in a Puritan society that harshly condemns adultery. One can see here the atmosphere of violence she is plunged into. More generally, or rather more specifically, violence is present on various

Public shame is never a pleasant occurrence, but every society has its own way of punishing others who have committed a crime. Humiliation is present in everyday life and in novels. The Scarlet Letter and The Other Wes Moore both deal with public degradation. The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore is the story of two men who live very different lives, but share the same name. Both faced similar difficulties in their youth, although they went down opposite paths in their adult lives. The other Wes Moore chose a path of drugs and violence, which led to him committing murder during a robbery. After his arrest, Moore’s mugshot was shown all over the news and he had a criminal trial. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne has committed a horrible sin in her Puritan community, she has committed adultery. Her punishment was being branded with a piece of scarlet cloth shaped like the letter A on her chest for the rest of her life. Hester must deal with the continuous judgement of the townspeople with her daughter Pearl. Hawthorne and Moore both described in their novels the effect humiliation has on an individual's life and how public shame is present in all societies, past and present, through the use of tone and descriptive imagery.

The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a Puritan woman who has committed adultery and must pay for her sin by wearing a scarlet “A'; on her bosom. The woman, Hester Prynne, must struggle through everyday life with the guilt of her sin. The novel is also about the suffering that is endured by not admitting to one’s wrongs. Reverend Mister Dimmesdale learns that secrecy only makes the guilt increase. Nathaniel Hawthorne is trying to display how guilt is the everlasting payment for sinful actions. The theme of guilt as reparation for sin in The Scarlet Letter is revealed through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of northeastern, colonial settings, various conflicts, and

The role of punishments in the justice system is designed to be served for a certain period of time then end, but today “public shaming exercises haphazardly mix the real world with virtual reality [social media] [...]” (Beato) because public humiliation fails to have an exact ending due to social media. A crucial part of the justice system is to reform the individuals who are punished under it; punishments that end allow individuals to move on and become good citizens again. Since public humiliation does not end, it is not a viable option for punishments that reform the individual. Judges often sentence criminals to public humiliation because they believe it to be a less intense form of punishment. However in reality, public humiliation is the most damaging form of punishment, below the death penalty, because the damage caused by public humiliation follow the individual for the rest of their life. Public humiliation is too damaging to be used to punish

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.

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne paints a picture of two equally guilty sinners, Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale, and shows how both characters deal with their different forms of punishment and feelings of remorse for what they have done. Hester Prynne and Reverend Dimmesdale are both guilty of adultery, but have altered ways of performing penance for their actions. While Hester must pay for her sins under the watchful eye of the world around her, Reverend Dimmesdale must endure the heavy weight of his guilt in secret. It may seem easier for Reverend Dimmesdale to live his daily life since he is not surrounded by people who shun

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 main character in The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne, emerged from the gloom of this dark society's punishment. For her crime of adultery, she faced the most commonly used punishment—public humiliation. Although this involved no physical harm, its use in such a proper society brought ridicule and shame paralleling a punishment as harsh as death itself. Hester stood amidst the crowd for three tortuous hours, struggling to withstand the burning glares of the townspeople feeling, "as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once." (40). This display was made even more severe because she was also sentenced "to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom," the letter "A", for the rest of her life (43). The scarlet symbol for adultery branded Hester as a sinner to others, and when she was alone it burned like fire into her innermost heart to remind her of the life-shattering punishment society sentenced her for a single sin.

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is publicly humiliated for her crimes by being forced to wear an “A” for adultery. The letter left a mark on Hester’s name that she could never get off. Public humiliation today leaves the same mark on people, yet judges continue to use it in a court of law. Public humiliation should not be used as a punishment for criminal offenses. Many crimes that are committed have the ability to put others in danger.

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