Hester Prynne Sanction
The persistent issue of corporate punishment has been the proverbial thorn in the side of many people throughout history. Corporations have caused many people huge amounts of both physical and emotional pain due to instances of improper mechanical maintenance, ignorance towards the environment, and the manufacture of life threatening products. The main problem that lies as an obstacle in front of prosecutors of these corporations is, who do they punish?
The Lord Chancellor of England questioned, “Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?”
Countless victims throughout history have been perplexed to come up with a solution to answer the Chancellor's question. How can people throw a corporation in jail, or have them compensate for their immeasurable losses? In his work The
Hester Prynne Sanction, Peter French analyses ways in which the courts can change how they punish corporations more effectively. This essay will take a critical look at French's solution, examining if it is an effective and morally justified fashion of punishing corporations.
In our society, retributive ideals have been implanted in us, as the famous biblical “eye for an eye” concept seems to be society's manner with which we punish criminals. This is an interesting case though, because corporations don't simply have one individual they can place the blame upon. Rather, they are comprised of hundreds or even thousands of people, and therefore there is no extensive punishment prosecutors can place upon everybody who is employed by a corporation. In a famous case in Indiana involving Ford Pinto whose “cost benefit analysis regarding the redesign of the gas tank on the Pinto” cost a person his life. The firm ended up paying $200,000, but how can you place a price on human life? And furthermore, who can you go after for retribution? The engineer who drew up the plans? The CEO who approved the change? Or even the
Factory worker who placed the new tank in the car? None of them, according to the current laws, writes French. “ The idea that a corporation can pay a court fine or a set sum to the relatives of its' victim in a homicide case, and therefore expiate its guilt is, however, regarded by many people as a shocking affront to justice.” Very few of these cases can be directly linked to individual negligence or intentional recklessness, and the fines can easily be written off as business expenses. The corporations usually recover fines quickly by means of higher prices. This poses a major problem for society, because the
She passes him a note that wrote “I love you.” Winston shows a desire; he himself had always had a thought of her. After 2 days, Winston and the girl were able to meet. She had given Winston the location where they could meet again. The two were able to meet away from the telescreen unsupervised. The girl revealed herself as Julia. Winston and Julia made love. Winston sees Julia as a great partner for the rebellion.
Winston Smith, from the novel 1984, is a low status member of the Party who rules over the nation of Oceania. Winston is never alone, even in his own house. Everywhere he goes the Party is watching him through what they call telescreens. Oceania is run by a leader that is referred to as Big Brother. Winston is struggling with the fact that he doesn’t even have control of his own life, it’s controlled by the Party and Big Brother. When Winston becomes frustrated by the Party and Big Brother he illegally buys a diary in which to write criminal things like, “Down with Big Brother.” The Thought Police can basically read your mind, so even thinking anything rebellious or illegal will get you in trouble with them. Winston knows that he will soon get caught by the Thought Police for committing a thoughtcrime. He convinces himself that he will be caught no matter what he does, so he continues to rebel. Winston finds the courage to join a secret organization, called the Brotherhood, in order to take down Big Brother.
Liability in restitution with disgorgement of profit is an alternative to liability for contract damages measured by injury to the promisee.” (2011)
Regarding the punishment of Hester Prynne, there are some concerns that must be stated. Hester' punishment should be made significantly harsher because Hester is not repenting from her sin and the pros of making her punishment harsher outweigh the cons.
In 1984 by George Orwell, the government of Big Brother is overbearing and all knowing which crushes freedom of speech and free thought. Big Brother easily edits history and tries to convince people that reality is something different. The main character, Winston can remember what life was like before Big Brother and when he first comes into power. The memory of his father being vaporized also serves as a catalyst for his hatred of Big Brother and leads him...
loss, it's to do with futility. For all he did, for all the rules he
It was a quite normal day in April when Winston Smith was making his way home from work. The conflict in the story becomes more clear when Winston passes multiple decorations of Big Brother, reminding him that Big Brother is always watching. Winston reaches his home. Home, usually a safe place, is not so safe in this society. "Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer, though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing.” (3). Home is well known as a place of safety and privacy. In Winston’s world, the government has so much power that no one in the society is safe, even in their own home. This is what happens in a totalitarian society; the people don’t rebel or push for a revolution when they can enabling the government to completely abuse it’s power. If the people living in London had revolted against the government, the extremity of how controlled the people are would not be so
It is established early in the novel that Winston is conflicted of his beliefs and that he dislikes the oppressive system that is the Party, as such, Winston's passion had no place to be expressed. This was the case until the arrival of Julia, who showed Winston the freedom of not having the consequences of the supposed crimes that he was committing.When asked, “What are your true feelings to Big Brother?” Winston replies simply with, “I hate him.” (p.282) Later on, after Winston was captured and sent to the Ministry of Love, Orwell depicts Winston’s passion for Julia to be great, as it took many months to “break” Winston and make him “love Big Brother.”
Although, with the realization that Winston was dead in the eyes of the thought police. A relationship built on sexual impulses, love, and rebellious actions and thoughts against Big Brother was like waving a red flag above their hands for the thought police. Despite this fact, their relationship continues for a few months and it wasn’t until they gained entry into the brotherhood with the help of O 'Brien , did the thought police finally captured them. By installing the relationship between Julia and Winston, George Orwell is presenting how totalitarianism and manipulation works hand in hand. Totalitarianism because they understand they will be punished for their thoughts and actions, and manipulation due to the fact that even though the thought police could not see them they getting caught
I would like to welcome the judge and jury to the case of Winston Smith. The party has recently switched to a democratic-principled party which comes with many opportunities. However, Winston Smith serves jail time for charges that don't fall under human rights. I am here today to prove that winston’s innocence needs to be justified. Due to the change in government Winston on fault of o'brien and party members was treated inhumanely and needs justice.
George Orwell creates a dark, depressing and pessimistic world where the government has full control over the masses in the novel 1984. The protagonist, Winston, is low-level Party member who has grown to resent the society that he lives in. Orwell portrays him as a individual that begins to lose his sanity due to the constrictions of society. There are only two possible outcomes, either he becomes more effectively assimilated or he brings about the change he desires. Winston starts a journey towards his own self-destruction. His first defiant act is the diary where he writes “DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.” But he goes further by having an affair with Julia, another party member, renting a room over Mr. Carrington’s antique shop where Winston conducts this affair with Julia, and by following O’Brien who claims to have connections with the Brotherhood, the anti-Party movement led my Emmanuel Goldstein. Winston and Julia are both eventually arrested by the Thought Police when Mr. Carrington turns out to be a undercover officer. They both eventually betray each other when O’Brien conducts torture upon them at the Ministry of Love. Orwell conveys the limitations of the individual when it comes to doing something monumental like overthrowing the established hierarchy which is seen through the futility of Winston Smith’s actions that end with his failure instead of the end of Big Brother. Winston’s goal of liberating himself turns out to be hopeless when the people he trusted end up betraying him and how he was arbitrarily manipulated. It can be perceived that Winston was in fact concerned more about his own sanity and physical well-being because he gives into Big Brother after he is tortured and becomes content to live in the society he hated so much. Winston witnesses the weakness within the prole community because of their inability to understand the Party’s workings but he himself embodies weakness by sabotaging himself by associating with all the wrong people and by simply falling into the arms of Big Brother. Orwell created a world where there is no use but to assimilate from Winston’s perspective making his struggle utterly hopeless.
Winston Smith is a thirty-nine year old man who participates in a group of the “outer-party,” which is the lower part of the two classes. Smith works in one of the four main government buildings. This building is called the Ministry of Truth; his job is to rewrite history books so those that read them will not learn what the past used to be like. The occupation Winston is the major factor that allows him to realize that Big Brother is limiting people’s freedom. He keeps these thoughts to himself as secrets because the totalitarian party will not allow those of rebellious thoughts around. The tensions between the two grow throughout the book because the Big Brother becomes very suspicious of Winston. The Big Brother becomes so suspicious of Winston that he sends a person by the name O’Brien, to watch over him. Mr. O’Brien is a member of the “inner party,” which in this book is the upper-class. Winston doesn't know of the trap that Big Brother had set tells O’Brien of his own idea and plans. He tells Winston of a rebellious leader that has been rounding up those that want to go against the totalitarian government. But like the Big Brother had done, he set a trap and O’Brien betrayed Winston. During the story the conflict between Big Brother and Winston climaxes when Winston is caught. He is taken to some sort of bright underground prison type
Winston finds a loophole to expressing his thoughts through writing in a journal. Since Big Brother is always watching everything that Winston does through telescreens, he cannot verbally express his feelings towards The Party without being caught. Living in a world full of mostly uniformity, Winston obviously stands out as a recalcitrant individual. Winston is fully exposed to The Party at all time, leaving him without any privacy. Winston uses his writing to express his individuality, but he does not even feel completely safe because “The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.” (15) Even when he is not expressing any opinion verbally, Winston is still in danger of being caught by the Thought Police, leading him to have a hatred and conflict with The Party because they do not allow him to express his individuality. Winston is never alone, even when he is physically alone, which diminishes his sense of any privacy. Winston’s invasion of privacy by The Party does not end with the telescreens. In Oceania, “In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, the author, Nathaniel Hawthorn makes a commentary on the hypocrisy in the Puritan life style through his portrayal of his characters Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s adored Puritan priest, and Hester Prynne, the ostracized sinner. Throughout the novel, Nathaniel Hawthorn depicts traits that contradict the Puritan’s ideas of how a defiled sinner and a proper Puritan priest should behave by the social conventions of their time. The author does this by illustrating Dimmesdale, who is supposed to be a righteous and holy person, as a sinful and cowardly man. Dimmesdale is also show to be a naive individual who is oblivious to the ever present danger that surrounds him. He is a complete contradiction to commonly held image of the honorable and holy priest. And the character who is portrayed as a righteous and selfless helper is the adulteress Hester Prynne, the woman whom the Puritan people detest for her sin. Hester is also shown to be a confident and strong character, a
The presence of crime was a difficult, unwanted aspect of both Puritan society and life in the eighteen hundreds that had to be dealt with in order for society to remain fully functional. Justice systems were used over the course of this particular time period to create laws, maintain order, and to justly convict criminals that threatened the societal peace in an attempt to reduce the impact of crime within communities. Laws created by these systems reflected the standards held by the majority of the population, and they worked for the greater good of all members in a particular community. In Hawthorne’s book “The Scarlet Letter,” he was able to combine both the Puritan Law and common modes of punishment from his lifetime to create Hester Prynne’s sentence.