Public Shaming In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

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. He wondered if his ancestors would have approved of what he was writing. Since, in addition to frowning upon sinning, the Puritans also believed that life should be spent praising God, and believed fancy clothing, unholy music, and any other book other than the Bible would distract them from that. Hawthorne chose to write the book after getting fired as Customs Officer and he wanted to share American culture and history. Hawthorne shows how public shamings have always been at the core of

Puritans were known to be highly religious and based their entire lives off the Bible. So for Hester to commit a sin, in the eyes of the Puritans it was like she committed a crime. Hester had come to the town from England in hopes of making a new life with her husband. But her husband took several years to finally come to the town. Hester had reached the conclusion that her husband was dead. So when she was attracted to a man in the town, they commit adultery and Hester becomes pregnant. When the town learns of her sin, they become outraged and are determined to teach her a lesson. First she was jailed, then forced to wear the scarlet letter and become subject to public shamings. The scarlet letter was a red ‘A’ that Hester had to wear on her chest until the Puritans felt that she learned from her sin. All through this punishment, the town wanted Hester to reveal the man who she committed adultery with and her baby’s father but Hester