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Banned In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Scarlet Letter'

655 Words3 Pages

The Scarlet Letter

Imagine standing on a lunch table in the center of the cafeteria in which the wrongdoer’s peers throw harsh judgments at their victim, one by one for an hour or more. This is the equivalent to what Hester Prynne endured: a public shaming. Luckily public humiliations are not common in this day and age. The person who was receiving the attention often has the instinct to cower and think lowly of themselves, but that is not how Hester Prynne reacted. The novel in which Hester Prynne is introduced is thought to be worthy of banishment, but plenty of others disagree. Whether or not the novel is deserving of being banned is a diverse topic. Even though Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter has been banned for its questionable content, the book is commonly put back on the shelf because of the things one can learn and gain from reading this novel. With this in mind, The Scarlet Letter has been banned and challenged in various places and for various reasons across the globe. A ban occurred in Russia in 1852 while Czar Nicholas I was in power (parenthetical). The novel also received a challenge in the 1990s because people believed that the book was “conflicting with the values of the community” (parenthetical). A parent challenged the book in 1982, declaring that it was too mature for …show more content…

A single reason for banning the book was given by Reverend Arthur C. Coxe when he proclaimed that The Scarlet Letter did not teach the reader proper convictions (parenthetical). Meanwhile parents in Michigan did not believe that the novel was the best choice of book for their children to read because of the content best-suited for more mature readers (parenthetical). The book is “too frank and revealing” claimed the high school principal who accomplished getting The Scarlet Letter taken off the recommended reading list

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The Scarlet Letter, shows how badly people were treated for committed a sin in that time period. The main character, Hester Prynne committed lechery and in puritan society, which was very closely related to religion breaking the commandment that forbid adultery earned a very big punishment. It was even worse for Hester because she ended up conceiving a child. One way Hester was shunned by people was by having to wear the scarlet letter that would bring her public shame. Hester knew that because of the letter “young and pure would be taught to look at her, with the scarlet letter flaming on her breast,—at her, the child of honorable parents,—at her, the mother of a babe, that would hereafter be a woman, —at her, who had once been innocent, —as the figure, the body, the reality of sin”

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The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne opens in a Puritan settlement, where Hester Prynne is being publicly shunned for adultery, in which she has to stand in front of a crowd for overt punishment and wear a scarlet ‘A’ on her chest. She holds her child, Pearl, who symbolizes her inability to hide her own past and her sins from the judgment of her settlement. The novel progresses in a way that further defines her mental strength and ability to endure this judgment. However, Arthur Dimmesdale, the town’s pastor, demonstrates a differing method in which he deals with his own personal judgment and fear of alienation. As The Scarlet Letter advances, his mental strength corrupts with the help of Chillingworth’s methods of trickery and Dimmesdale’s

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Shatoni Madison February 3.2016 Writing Wednesday Recently, several English teachers have decided to teach a certain book to their classes that contains questionable material normally not allowed in schools, including poor language, sexuality, and violence. They claim that the book has many redeeming qualities about it, and also is a great tool for teaching students reading and analytical skills. In my opinion, teachers should be permitted to teach these questionable book to their students. If an author's work was to be tampered with I feel as if many books will lose their value and or the meaning the author was trying to convey.

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In 1968 the National Education Association placed the novel second on a list of titles receiving the most complaints from private organizations. Racial slurs, profanity, and blunt dialogue about rape

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Some of the most famous early banned books are Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, and The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. These two books were banned for different reasons. The only thing they have in common is how is breaks the First Amendment. The First Amendment states ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” (The First Amendment).

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Some school districts believe it is an inappropriate book to be showing their students because of the racial content. It shouldn’t be banned because of history, its representation of empathy and justice, and its literary value and success. Some people believe it’s a hard topic which I agree with, but you need to teach hard topics to get the point across and help educate the youth about bad times so it doesn’t happen again. We need to preserve historic items, not throw them away and forget about them; we wouldn’t just scrap the Titanic. To Kill a

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At the moment copies started being printed in Russian, the USSR banned the book from the country because the government saw it as propaganda against communism, and did not want the work corrupting their citizens (Payne). However, the Soviet Union was not the only place where the book became banned. In the United States the book was soon banned in many schools and even banned in Jackson County, FL. “...parents in Jackson County, Florida, would make the challenge in 1981 that it was 'pro communist' and that it contained 'explicit sexual matter'” (Baldassarro).

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Throughout The Scarlet Letter, there are so many people who are so quick to judge others and their actions before even considering all the things that they have done themselves, which are often worse than the actions of those who they judge. That is one of the biggest ways in which the book is still relevant today. Another aspect of the book that is applicable to today’s society is that while most of today’s churches may not be as hypocritical as the Puritan community in Hawthorne’s novel, there are many of them that present themselves as being much more righteous than they actually are. Nathaniel Hawthorne proves that even teachers and leaders have secret sin by displaying how guilt affects an individual that is living a lie. Even though it was written 200 years ago, The Scarlet Letter is a book that is still relevant today.

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Hester’s scarlet letter is the equivalent of the slut shaming that too many women experience every day.” (A Freedom Letter, para 1). This correlates with Hester’s situation, because she had a private affair with another man. Hester’s actions were between her, Dimmesdale, and God, but the townspeople took it into their own hands to decide on her punishments. Those included locking her up in prison, publicly humiliating her on a scaffold in town, ordering her to embellish all of her clothing with red A’s, and constantly gossiping about her private life.

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A Comparative Analysis of Society and Its Relationship with Public Shaming In 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne published his book titled The Scarlet Letter. Hawthorne had many ancestors who were Puritans. One of them is Judge Hathorne, who had been part of the Salem Witch Trials and who had condemned many innocent people to death. Hawthorne had difficulty writing the story because of his ancestral connection to Puritans.

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