Punishment in The Scarlet Letter In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, physical punsihment is nothing compared to how the mind can cause punishment. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester Phynne is isolated by the members of Purtian society and left with her child Pearl, a constent reminder of her sin. Dimmesdale’s choice to not feese up to his sin leaves him with mental punishment that makes him sicker and weaker. Chillingsworth does not receive pain, but he does inflict pain to those around him. The main characters of The Scarlet Letter are left to tourment by themselves, the worst punishment of them all.
Everyone knows Hester because of the sin she committed and everyone knows her punishment, the letter A on her chest. She of course, does not like all this negative attention because it is affecting her lifestyle and the lifestyle of her child, Pearl. Early in the third chapter a man asks a townsman who Hester is. The townsman replies, “‘You must needs be a stranger in this region, friend, else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and her evil doings’” (Hawthorne pg. 57).In the market place, people criticize Hester as she emerges from the prison door and makes her way to the scaffold to be publicly condemned.
She tells how there were government houses, libraries, departments of Treasury, Banks that were owned by slave traders and the Mill Reef Club that “ declared itself completely private, in order to keep out the natives unless they were servants, on each corner. All that once was Antigua are the reasons why she hates the English. She calls them “pigs that behaved in a bad way”. She is upset because of the mistreatment that her and her people faced from the English, describing the personal experiences natives have had with the racist “so called doctors” that
The most important symbol in the book, the embroidered "A" on her bosom, sewed on as punishment for adultery, is also a symbol for alienation. She is different from all of society because of that mark, and can never live a normal life because of it. Hester was most likely the best seamstress in Boston she was unable to embroide a wedding vale for any bride. The white vale symbolized purity and the hands of Hester were not pure. Hester, being an outcast of society, experiences the most evident and apparent form of isolation and alienation.
Leola caused Dunstan to experience jealousy and pity. Diana is also controlling and manipulative, like Dunstan’s mother, which is why he leaves her. Through Diana, the reader sees how much Dunstan’s mother has affected his life with women. Liesl made Dunstan realize that he felt no emotion, and she caused him to feel it again. She brought him out of the isolation his mother put him in.
From the media, everyone knew of his faults just as the entire town knew of Hester’s by the A and her punishment on the platform. Because Hester and Downey were shunned, people also shunned their incredible talents. Hester was known for her talent of needlework. Her work was the best in town and would even be worn by the governor sometimes. But because of her adulterous sin, she was not allowed to use this talent for
Nathaniel Hawthorne goes into depth about sins that most people don’t want to hear about. During the time period of The Scarlet Letter, adultery was extremely frowned upon, and was punishable by death. Dimmesdale kept the guilt and the pain of what he had done bundled up inside; Hester`s sin was brought to light she stood on a scaffold alone as people watched; Chillingworth was letting his anger and hatred control his very being. Hester along with her baby had nothing else to do, but stand and watch as her lover stood by. As she was tried for the very thing he should be tried for.
Its just I cant help thinking about this girl-destroying her life so horribly.’ This shows Sheila feels commiseration and sensitivity towards Eva and her death which comes across as genuine regret when she realises she could be linked to her suicide. Mr Birling interrupts her questioning by becoming even more aggressive when trying to defend her daughter. The phrase ‘why the devil do you want to go upsetting a child like that’ that he uses shows he is more concerned that his daughter has been affected by feelings of guilt and shame for what they might have done to Eva Smith. He doesn’t realise the depth of the familys involvement and still feels able to be bitter and outspoken towards the inspector. However, this does impact the inspector at all because he continues his questioning with Sheila further.
Perkins Gilman’s short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper," is the disheartening tale of a woman suffering from depression and how severely her condition is misunderstood by those around her. The setting of the story is in itself a character in the narrator’s story. The old mansion with the yellow wallpaper has many symbols used by the authors to explain the desperation of the narrator’s desperate loneliness. The ironic part of this tale is that her cure of “rest” only pushes the narrator further into her madness. The woman in this story is an ironic symbol of all women in her time, she is unheard and alone in her illness.
The Puritans in The Scarlet Letter ironically condemn Hester by hypocritically reacting to her sin and by foolishly praising the preacher who actually committed adultery with her. Once the puritans realize Hester was pregnant, they began to condemn her and give her harsh consequences. All together they banished her from the town and tried to take her daughter away from her. These consequences were given hypocritically since the majority of the town participated in witchcraft. The town, in order to justify it's sin, acted like they actually held standards by harshly attacking Hester's sin.