Public Shaming In The Scarlet Letter

Public shaming has long been society’s favorite way of punishing sinners for personal enjoyment. The guilt and humiliation caused works in the audience’s favor, and seldom forces the victim to fully repent. Therefore, public shaming is not an effective form of punishment, because a person needs to internally recognize the sin and forgive themselves before they can adapt their behavior and oftentimes the public is not a reliable enforcer of long term punishment.
Although the public repercussions can affect how a person views sin, often it only leaves a temporary impression on the sinner. The public loses interest in ridiculing the same person and moves on, forgetting the punishment that they enacted. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is chastised by her colony for a few years, but “ in the lapse of the toilsome, thoughtful, and self-devoted years that made up Hester’s life, the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and bitterness,”

It would be quite the accomplishment if the thoughts of society forced someone to permanently alter their behavior. Guilt and eventual acknowledgement of poor behavior must come from inside the person, not forced by other people, making the behavior change authentic. In Medieval Europe, public shaming was a favorite pastime for many peasants. Criminals were paraded around in carts for all to see and judge; however, this did not stop crime and sins from happening repeatedly. Once they finished their trip around the village, many criminals went back to the same behavior they were doing at the beginning. The ineffectiveness of public shaming is linked to the fact that many people do not care about societal expectations as much as predicted, and do not internally feel ashamed of their actions. It is necessary for one to reflect on the past to move forward, a goal that public shaming rarely