In Ancient Greek times, there was a tradition where if a public servant or military official were to do something radical or against the law, they were to be jailed. That was however standard preceding, and still is today, for lawbreakers, however, it was the extra step they took back then is the main difference. Once they were convicted of their crime, a vote would be put up for the entire community to determine whether or not that person would be ostracized. Literal abandonment by society, even threatening to kill you if you returned. This is just one example of why public shame is bad. The others being the fact that public shame prompts people to go far, such as in the article: “Is the Internet a Mob without Consequence?” By Nick Bilton, …show more content…
While at times some people may review the fact that public shame brings justice in the sense of “punishment,” that is assigned to the person. However public shame and its punishments never had a line drawn. Some people go too, bordering on death threats. This is the case in the article: “Is the Internet a Mob without Consequence?”, where Bolton writes: ““Within hours, people threatened to rape, shoot, kill and torture her. The mob found her Facebook and Instagram accounts and began threatening the same perils on photos she had posted of friends and family. Not satisfied, people began threatening her family directly.” (Bilton 1). This quote encapsulates the fact that such a lynch mob goes too far in certain examples. While the tweet was very politically incorrect, for what is probably a sarcastic and had the complete intent to joke was received almost as if Ms. Sacco was a slave owner screaming racial slurs ever sentence. Even if this was meant seriously, which is impossible to determine, threatening the person’s life and even going so far as to threaten her family, none of which are in the slightest bit guilty of writing that tweet, is way too far. The proper …show more content…
A perfect example of people going too far. Furthermore, Hawthorne in his novel about the effects of public shame writes: ““‘At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne's forehead. Madame Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,—the naughty baggage,—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!’” (Hawthorne 47). This quote may not be as extreme, however, it is just as despicable. Also ironic in a sense, as the people think Hester as a sinner and some woman to go from ma to man, she was in love with Arthur. However, still according to the community she is a sinner and deserving of the scaffold treatment, and the scarlet letter “A” on her chest. These people have a different plan in mind, branding her. Getting a hot iron, and causing extreme pain to Hester, and forever marking her. While she may be a sinner forever, this quite simply is a reaction worthy of being a sin as well, causing not only unnecessary but also an unspeakable pain to another. Funny how people who preach
... court, there are only two choices for their fate: confess to a false crime and spend time in jail for it, or don't confess and face either torture until you confess or your execution. It is a lose lose situation. This is true for every person who is tried in front of the court. People became fearful of this and they could do nothing but accuse everyone they can in order to prevent accusation of themselves.
Three gossips present at Hester’s public shaming moan at Hester’s “merciful” punishment, one even going as far as declaring “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die.” (Hawthorne 36). As time passes, however, and Hester dutifully lives out her penance, the people start to see the piety of her everyday actions. After seven years, they go from crying for her death to exclaiming “None so ready as she to give of her little substance to every demand of poverty…None so self-devoted as Hester, when pestilence stalked through the town.” (Hawthorne 110). They also declared her “a self-ordained Sister of Mercy…Such helpfulness was found in her,—so much power to do, and power to sympathize,—that many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able.” (111). When the people of Hester’s town managed to stop gawking at Hester, they easily saw her true nature and changed their ideas to
"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally becoming bewildered as to which may be true”. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, this quote applies to the two main characters of the novel. It applies to Arthur Dimmesdale in a literal way; he clearly is not the man that he appears to be, and the guilt that goes along with such deception consumes his entire life. The quote also applies to Hester Prynne, but in quite a different way because it was not her choice to wear the “face” that she was forced to wear. The mark of the scarlet letter on her bosom determined how others perceived her and, in turn, how she was expected to perceive herself. At first, Hester did not consider the sin that she committed as blasphemous and horrible as the people of Boston did, but she was forced to wear the “face” of a sinner.
As Hester wears the scarlet letter, the reader can feel how much of an outcast Hester becomes. When walking through town, “…she never raised her head to receive their greeting. If they were resolute to accost her, she laid her finger on the scarlet letter and passed on” (Hawthorne, 127).She believes that she is not worthy of the towns acknowledgments and chooses to ignore them. The guilt that now rests in Hester is overwhelming to her and is a reason of her change in personality.
Not everyone in the crowd wants to see Hester burn at the stake. This woman understands that Hester is so busy judging herself that she hardly cares what happens to her publicly.
In it, the main character Hester is forced to wear a red, or more specifically scarlet, letter “A” on her dress because she had conceived a daughter under an adulterous affair, which, at the time, was an extremely punishable offence. Hawthorne uses the punishment she did receive to illustrate that even the worst of offenders sometimes deserve a second chance. However, this is not the only claim that Hawthorne makes about Hester’s predicament. Hawthorne writes in his book that Hester became an outcast when she committed adultery. When she was branded with the scarlet letter, it exposed to the society she lived in what she truly was: different.
By Hester committing a sin, they weren’t being sentenced to eternal damnation, she was. All the townspeople did was make Hester’s life a living hell. However, ironically, Hawthorne contrasts the goodness and strength with the cruelty of the religious Puritans. The letter ‘A’ upon her breast harsh cruel enough. It was “represented in exaggerated and gigantic proportions, so as to be greatly the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it” (Hawthorne 97). Hester’s identity was swallowed by her marking. Nobody knew the true Hester Prynne because the society connected the letter to her morality. Hester wasn’t a person who should be damned to Hell, but the Puritans thought so when they saw her chest. Hester almost escaped this life of being enslaved by the letter, but “Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but out loud, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation” (Hawthorne 180). She chose to live her life with the embroidery upon her chest,
In today’s society, people are more accepting of others differences compared to the Puritans. This often times means that people will silently judge a person, rather than being up front with them. In addition to this, the Puritans religion was much stricter and saw sins to be much more severe, compared to today’s society. They also believed in irresistible grace, which is when “Salvation is given only by God and cannot be earned even by the most pious believer, nor can it be spurned by the vilest sinner.” Based on this belief, Hester’s “A” was a sign of her afterlife destination, while mine was only a temporary vice. This lead the members of the Puritan society to look at Hester in disgrace and to react to her letter. Meanwhile, in today’s society people follow a variety of religions causing people to not judge others based on their own personal beliefs. So, in my experience of wearing the letter “A”, I was not verbally abused as Hester was, nor was my letter assumed to be tied to any religious
When she is first commanded to wear a scarlet letter A, she sees it as a curse. For the first few years she tries to ignore the ignominy under a mask of indifference. “Hester Prynne, meanwhile, kept her place upon the pedestal of shame, with glazed eyes, and an air or weary indifference,” Hawthorne writes. (page 48) Even so, she cannot hide from what her sin has produced.
Obviously, the scarlet letter had the largest impact on Hester, it was a constant reminder of the sin she committed. The "A" she must wear on her bosom completely humiliates her in front of everyone she meets, she begins to even hide behind it, trying to conceal her identity. Hawthorne is referring to Hester in the quote, "The unhappy culprit sustained herself as best a woman might, under the heavy weight of a thousand unrelenting eyes, all fastened upon her and concentrated on her bosom" (55). So many people are staring at her as if she"s the most unfaithful, awful person in the world. She knows that she will never regain the respect she had before this incident. The scarlet letter she wears will constantly remind her and the townspeople that she is a sinner. While at Governor Bellingham"s mansion, Hester can"t help but notice while looking into the shining armor how much the "A" stands out. The "A" is seen "in exaggeration and gigantic proportions, so as to be the most prominent feature of her appearance. In truth, she seemed absolutely hidden behind it" (102). Right then and there, she realizes how much the "A" has become a part of her. She believes if the "A" becomes magnified in her reflection, the people who look at her must only notice the scarlet letter. She sees herself as if her true appearance is being hidden behind the “A” and she feels that no one looks at her anymore, just the letter. The scarlet letter has ruined her reputation, as well as her appearance. On Hester ...
Hester Prynne committed a crime so severe that it changed her life into coils of torment and defeat. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly recognized as an adulteress and expelled from society. Alongside the theme of isolation, the scarlet letter, or symbol of sin, is meant to shame Hester but instead transforms her from a woman of ordinary living into a stronger person.
One of themes that Hawthorne conveys in The Scarlet Letter is that society is more willing to forgive people who ask for forgiveness with humility and generosity than those who demanded it as a right. This theme was conveys using Hester Prynne, a young women who committed adultery. This was considered to be one of the worst crime someone could commit in the Puritan society during the eighteen hundreds, where she resides in. As punishment, Hester was required to wear a scarlet letter "A" upon her garment in order for everyone to recognize her crime. Her society had condemn her, they believed that she "has brought shame upon all of us, and ought to die..."(59) Yet, as time went by, because of the way in which Hester carried herself wearing the scarlet letter, the symbol had taken a new meaning. Although, when the scarlet letter was first place on her bosom it was a symbol of Hester's crime, burden, seclusion, and shame. However, as a result of Hester's generosity and humility the scarlet letter had come to symbolize Hester's strength, philanthropy, and gained her very high respectability in her society.
A moral panic can be defined as a phenomenon, frequently initiated by disquieting media and reinforced by responsive laws and public policies, of embellished public concern, angst or anger over a perceived danger to societal order (Krinsky, 2013). The media plays a crucial role in emphasizing a current moral panic. In Jock Young’s chapter Images of Deviance (1971), he comments on the phenomenon of deviance magnification, he deems dramatic media coverage of deviant behaviours to be ironic, owing to the fact that it unintentionally increases rather than restrains the apparent deviance. In hind sight the media create social problems, owing to the fact that they can present them dramatically and are able to do it swiftly (Young & Cohen, 1971: 37).
Hester Prynne’s sin was adultery. This sin was regarded very seriously by the Puritans, and was often punished by death. Hester’s punishment was to endure a public shaming on a scaffold for three hours and wear a scarlet letter "A" on her chest for the rest of her life in the town. Although Hawthorne does not pardon Hester’s sin, he considers it less serious than those of Dimmesdale and Chillingworth. Hester’s sin was a sin of passion. This sin was openly acknowledged as she wore the "A" on her chest. Hester did not commit the greatest sin of the novel. She did not deliberately mean to commit her sin or mean to hurt others.
The 90's internet boom gave rise to new ways of writing in through access to cyberspace. What used to be printed or handwritten on physical surfaces such as paper, cardboard, or bulletin boards has changed to 0's and 1's, bits and bytes of digitized information that can be displayed thru the projections of computer screens. Moreover, the internet has made the process of publishing one's works, writing letters, or chatting with one another much easier and convenient for everyone around the globe. The internet became a universal tool, giving much freedom and flexibility to the users; it gave them opportunity to deliver their thoughts with little or no restrictions. Since it's impossible to regulate all cyber-activities, internet users are often unrestricted by the normal laws or authorities that would set boundaries around the various online transactions. More importantly, the fact that a net user can take on different identities in cyberspace brings about several ethical and social issues. These anonymous and unrestrictive characteristics of cyberspace often permite abusive users to easily involve themselves in serious cybercrimes such as cyberstalking, cyber-rape, and cyber-harassment through chatting services, emails, cyber communities, and other online communication.