As the community comes together to witness the shaming of Hester Prynne for the grievous crime of producing a child without her husband’s presence, one of the women states, “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead”(Hawthorne 42). The extreme sentiment demonstrates none of the compassion one might expect from a people who had set-forth on a perilous journey seeking freedom from tyranny and persecution. The venom with which it is spewed, which suggests the actual branding of a fellow human being, is as disproportionate to the perceived injustice in the community as to indicate a personal threat to the speaker. Another woman says, “[Hester] has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die”(43).
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Strict adherence to their moral code is evidenced by their history of banishing individuals from the community. Perhaps intolerance was a result of being in a vulnerable position, situated in the wilderness surrounded by threats both real and imagined. That being said, I do not believe that the views of the women are typical of my understanding of Puritanism.
While sentences could be harsh, particularly in this case where an individual is essentially given a life sentence, I don’t believe that the average individual would have been as heartless as the women’s views indicate. Her crime and “haughty”(45) demeanor may have offended the public conscience as her beauty threatened the other women, but the words coming from the women are as foul and repugnant as to compel the reader to take an opposite view, as Hawthorne must have intended. Thus the author reviews his feelings by creating such an extreme sentiment that the reader cannot take the women’s position but must abhor the very ideals embodied in their
Strict adherence to their moral code is evidenced by their history of banishing individuals from the community. Perhaps intolerance was a result of being in a vulnerable position, situated in the wilderness surrounded by threats both real and imagined. That being said, I do not believe that the views of the women are typical of my understanding of Puritanism.
While sentences could be harsh, particularly in this case where an individual is essentially given a life sentence, I don’t believe that the average individual would have been as heartless as the women’s views indicate. Her crime and “haughty”(45) demeanor may have offended the public conscience as her beauty threatened the other women, but the words coming from the women are as foul and repugnant as to compel the reader to take an opposite view, as Hawthorne must have intended. Thus the author reviews his feelings by creating such an extreme sentiment that the reader cannot take the women’s position but must abhor the very ideals embodied in their