Grigori Rasputin In The Scarlet Letter

Throughout history, many people have been involved in a scandal and the way society shunned them depended on the time period. For example, one of the most scandalous people who lived during the Russian revolution in the 1900s was Grigori Rasputin. Rasputin was a poor peasant, who pretended to be a holy man with powers to heal people. He created his own self-image of being a holy man, when he travel in Greece and Jerusalem. He ended up becoming an important part of the royal family, when he was magically able to stop the Tsar’s hemophilic son from bleeding. Soon, rumors started to spread that he was seducing the Tsarina and it is believed that he even said “sexual contact with his own body imbued a healing effect upon women” (Duffy). These events

Some members of the royal family decide to kill him. He was “given poisoned wine and cakes [and] dropped through a hole in the Neva River, where he finally died by drowning” (Duffy). Along with this, he was also shot multiple times. When compared to the way people were shunned in Puritan society Rasputin’s punishment seems less severe. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book 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”

When Rasputin was young, he joined the Khlysty sect that taught the best way to achieve a closer relationship ship with god was by drinking and having sex. From the very beginning of his life, he had lacked good morals. Rasputin’s real name was Grigory Yefimovich Novykh, but it was “replaced with the surname ‘Rasputin’ - Russian for ‘debauched one’” (Duffy). Rasputin name reflected his character. Likewise Hester wore on “the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and fantastic flourishes of gold-thread, appeared the letter A” (Hawthorne). The bold and beautiful scarlet letter that Hester wore showed her sin to everyone. Both Rasputin and Hester, have something that shows their bad side, allowing people to have a negative view of them negatively at first thought. Big difference between the two individuals is that while Hester became a total outcast, Rasputin still had some people helping even though the news about his scandal had already leaked. Since Rasputin had healed the tsar’s son, the tsarina believed that Rasputin “must have been sent by God. In her mind he was he the answer to her fervent prayers for God to save her son” (Atchison). She did not listen to what anyone else had to say about Rasputin and she would do whatever it took to keep Rasputin safe. The manipulative Rasputin was able to gain