What Is Shame Essay

1184 Words3 Pages

Kyle Kesler
Ms. McMillan
APEL: 6
25 September 2015
Shame Essay Shame is like a scar, eventually the pain from the initial injury will subside, but once the damage is inflicted it can’t be undone and will remain there for the rest of life for the public to see. While shame is an effective tool used to demonstrate societal values and rules, shame in today’s society is no longer effective because it has a destructive effect on human lives and it targets women. While shame is an effective tool to demonstrate societal values and rules, shame, when used incorrectly and excessively, is no longer effective because it has a destructive effect on human lives. In the novel The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne, a young woman, is found …show more content…

Hawthorne describes as Hester struggles through life and is overall changed by her lifelong sentence of shame and her “child of sin”, Pearl. Hester’s life was destroyed by shame and she spent the rest of her time striving for repentance and redemption for a “crime” she committed out of passion and love. So was Hester’s punishment fair? Although the scarlet “A” can be argued to have gotten its point across that adultery is wrong, no it was not fair because the punishment did not fit the crime. The punishment was excessive since it was a lifelong severe punishment and it was used incorrectly because it did more than just show adultery is not acceptable. Especially in our society today the punishment most definitely was not fair. It violated her rights as an individual and forced other’s views upon her. This demonstrates the destructive effect shame can have on human lives. A real life example of shame being used incorrectly and excessively is shown in David Perry’s article, Jeb’s Medieval Politics of Shame: Upholding a Long Tradition of Keeping Women and Girls in Line, 13-year-old Izabel Laxamana was a victim of shame. After Izabel’s father found out she had sent a picture

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