Juliette Dougherty
ELA 12/Sec. 08
Ms. Diamond
31 March, 2018
Hester Prynne's transformation throughout The Scarlet Letter
Justine Sacco sent out one tweet, and that was all it took to ruin her life. From the time she sent the tweet, to the time she stepped off the plane in Africa her entire life had changed. The entire world's eyes were on her, and they were intent on ruining her life. She lost her job, her face was plastered all over the media as a racist, and she was receiving death threats. All of this because of one tweet. Hester Prynne made one mistake, and it would change her life forever. The Puritan society was a theocracy. They believed they had the right to judge and punish people as they saw fit, and so they did. Hester was banished, and forced to wear a red ‘A’ on her breast for …show more content…
What the Puritans did not see coming was that, like Justine Sacco, Hester would not let this shame ruin her life. She would not let the judgement of others define who she is, and who she was going to be. She transforms her life, refusing to let her mistake define her. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne's uses the shame she receives as her motivation to transform herself from an adulterer, to an angel, to able.
Hester has committed a sin that required two people, yet she bears the burden of shame alone. Hester solely takes the blame for her mistake, refusing to give up the name of the man she had an affair with. She accepts the endless amount of ridicule the village throws at her. As she walks out of the prison cradling her daughter, Pearl, the townspeople watch her in contempt. They whisper and glare as she walks up to the podium where she will face the public shaming or consequences of her sin, “It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it in the public graze” (Hawthorne, 53).
ELA 12/Sec. 08
Ms. Diamond
31 March, 2018
Hester Prynne's transformation throughout The Scarlet Letter
Justine Sacco sent out one tweet, and that was all it took to ruin her life. From the time she sent the tweet, to the time she stepped off the plane in Africa her entire life had changed. The entire world's eyes were on her, and they were intent on ruining her life. She lost her job, her face was plastered all over the media as a racist, and she was receiving death threats. All of this because of one tweet. Hester Prynne made one mistake, and it would change her life forever. The Puritan society was a theocracy. They believed they had the right to judge and punish people as they saw fit, and so they did. Hester was banished, and forced to wear a red ‘A’ on her breast for …show more content…
What the Puritans did not see coming was that, like Justine Sacco, Hester would not let this shame ruin her life. She would not let the judgement of others define who she is, and who she was going to be. She transforms her life, refusing to let her mistake define her. Throughout The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne's uses the shame she receives as her motivation to transform herself from an adulterer, to an angel, to able.
Hester has committed a sin that required two people, yet she bears the burden of shame alone. Hester solely takes the blame for her mistake, refusing to give up the name of the man she had an affair with. She accepts the endless amount of ridicule the village throws at her. As she walks out of the prison cradling her daughter, Pearl, the townspeople watch her in contempt. They whisper and glare as she walks up to the podium where she will face the public shaming or consequences of her sin, “It was, in short, the platform of the pillory; and above it rose the framework of that instrument of discipline, so fashioned as to confine the human head in its tight grasp, and thus hold it in the public graze” (Hawthorne, 53).