Nancy Kerrigan'shunned Analysis

Introduction: Tonya Harding. The first thing a person thinks of after hearing this is another skater’s name. Nancy Kerrigan (Lowitt). Instead of being remembered as the only woman from America to land a triple axel in competition, or for any other of her accomplishments as a skater, Harding is remembered for her involvement in an incident with her rival, Nancy Kerrigan (Crossman). According to the St. Petersburg Times, “no one thinks of one without the other” (Lowitt). This is one of the ways skater Tonya Harding was “shunned” from the public after her attachment to an attack on Kerrigan. The media ate the case up, and before she knew it, Tonya was stripped from her national title and banned from competing in the US for life (Crossman) (Muldoon). Some may consider her circumstances to Hester Prynne’s, from The Scarlet Letter, who was shunned from her community and forced to wear an “A” on her chest after committing adultery. Although Harding is not required to wear an “A” for accomplice, she is viewed as a villain by the public, who saw herself as an underdog, and would stop at nothing to take her opponent …show more content…
I do however, believe it works. Shunning is a worse form of punishment for certain crimes than any kind of physical punishment would be. For Hester and Harding, their shunning affected them for the better. Their lives today would be completely different if they would have been given a simpler punishment. Both women were given time to reflect and think over their actions, and this is why a crime has not been committed by them again. Shunning a person affects them in a way no other punishment can, and is important today in the way we correct criminal’s mistakes. In Harding’s case, her public image was changed drastically by the media, but she got through her shunning. Her life will never be the same, but she is the person she is today because of