The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter share many themes that are still present in today’s society, such as the use of public humiliation as a punishment. Because of their sins, both John Proctor and Hester Prynne were alienated and punished by their peers and town leaders. The public humiliation that they faced helped shape the characters in the eyes of the reader and affected the way that they behaved and acted. The most obvious theme contained in both texts is sin. In The Scarlet Letter, the sin that has been committed is adultery where Hester Prynne and Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale conceive an illegitimate child, a daughter named Pearl.
Hamilton goes on to explain why her dislike of the jingo woman is so strong; “you make all women seem church duffers!” she implies the Jingo woman is seen as unintelligent, criticising why her opinions are wrong and that this view of her is being applied to all women. She disagrees with the way women like the jingo woman portray other women. She portrays the Jingo woman and her role in the war, in a negative light. In ‘women at munitions making’ by Mary Gabrielle, Gabrielle criticises women’s munitions work as unnatural. The word ‘coarsened’ implies that the women’s relationship with birth and life is tainted by munitions work and its association with death.
One of the Puritan ladies in the crowd suggests that Hestor has “brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there no law for it? Truly there is, both in scripture and statute book.” The Puritans wish further torture on Hestor, even though they themselves too have committed similar crimes. But in looking for a reason to bring more harm to Hestor, they break a commandment worse than Hestor’s; using the Lord’s name in vain. Just for their own satisfaction they look to manipulate the writings of their
Sin and Judgment The novel “The Scarlet Letter” starts with the sin of Hester Prynne. She has committed adultery in the puritan society that the criminal must be punished in front of others and on the scaffold. In chapter 2, we see two different judgments of people about Hester. Some people want her to be punished and they think that wearing the scarlet letter “A” is not enough. For example “this woman brought shame upon us all, and ought to die.
This forebodes the death of Macbeth and also Lady Macbeth by suggesting that they will not be able to kill the King and live a normal, guilt free life afterwards. Lady Macbeth then creates irony as she mocks Macbeth for thinking this way, she refers to him as a ‘coward’ and insists that this murder is necessary. This part of the play is extremely significant as we realise just how harsh Lady Macbeth is and how far she would really go. She removes any maternal characteristics that she may have had by explaining that her lack of pity would extend so far, that she would murder a baby. “Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out”.
Feminism, organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests, was a central theme in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” roles (Merriam-Webster). In the days of King Arthur, friars commonly raped women and caused them dishonor, rejecting respect for their roles. In that particular society, knights were regarded as chivalrous, righteous, and valiant individuals. It would be out of the ordinary and of course punishable for one to rape a woman. However, this is the case in The Wife of Bath’s Tale in which a young and lusty knight rapes a woman and has to pursue the answer to the Queen’s question of what women really desire.
The character of Smasher Sullivan is effectively used by Grenville to demonstrate how such prejudice allowed settlers to ‘dehumanise’ the ‘savages’. Sullivan uses the females as sex slaves, offering one to Thornhill for his ‘use’, bragging that ‘she done it with me and Saggity…like a couple of spoons’. While we, the modern reader, recoil in disgust at this blatantly hideous treatment, declaring such heinous behaviour to be the province of years gone by, it is Thornville’s reluctant refusal of Sullivan’s offer, coupled with his belated guilt that ‘(h)e did nothing to help her’, that asks us to question whether we would indeed help. Indigenous people have been subjected to the same lack of help, the same guilty indifference, in modern times. This type of prejudice is not always manifestly obvious; rather, it is subtle and systemic, the kind that allows people queuing at a bus station to step over an Aboriginal woman lying on the ground, assuming that she is intoxicated when in fact she has suffered a stroke.
A Jacobean audience would not approve of Lady Macbeth as she becomes a threat to the patriarchal society by emasculating the men of the play. Lady Macbeth is first introduced in Act One, scene five where she is reading a letter she has received from Macbeth. She calls for the dark spirits to visit her and take control. She could be doing his for two reasons, because she herself is evil and seeks the help of her natural allies, or because she sees her human weaknesses and needs to be strengthened from outside. In this scene, she claims ‘unsex me here’.
Guilt is constantly seen throughout the play Macbeth driving the characters to question their morals. To the responder it appears that Lady Macbeth is the driving force behind the initial killing of King Duncan influencing her husband Macbeth to commit the evil deeds by threatening him with his man hood by saying “when you do it, then you are a man”. Her tone portrays her dominant nature and her hunger for authority and demonstrates to the responder her strength as a character. However her over confident traits and clear and concise thinking is diminished once the guilt of the crime poisons her conscience. This is demonstrated by her imagining her hands stained by blood and her constantly trying to clean the “damned spot” away and rid her sole of the guilt.
The whore is a sexual, promiscuous, impure, dominant temptress, definitely challenging the patriarchal society. The third category that women are to be slotted into is the crone. The crone is old, ugly, thin and haggard and not accepted by society. In the patriarchal society the only woman who is accepted into society is the conventional Madonna, a supposed sweet, timid woman who used their bodies to please, give children and obey men. Both the whore and the crone were disregarded and not accepted because they were strange, uncommon and their dominant and powerful nature intimidated men.