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Theme Of Punishment In The Scarlet Letter

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In todays time, when an individual commits a crime or sin, the punishment varies depending on the act committed. In the puritan time, when a crime was committed, the individual(s) would be punished publicly by wearing a letter which symbolizes the crime committed. Like Hester, many people wear their scarlet letter on the outside and are publicly embarrassed or punished for what they did. Others may be like Dimmesdale, wearing their scarlet letter on the inside and be punished in the private or by suffering more. In The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the letter A symbolizes and changes different meanings throughout the novel. Early on in the novel, Hester is punished for her crime, adultery. "She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast that it sent forth a cry; she turned her eyes downward at the scarlet letter, and even touched it with her finger, to assure herself that the infant and the shame were real" (Hawthorne 124). The townspeople wanted Hester to suffer, sure, but they also wanted Pearl to suffer as well because she was the living scarlet letter. Hester and Pearl could not go anywhere without receiving dirty looks. The townspeople did not like Hester, not only for what she did, …show more content…

One night, while Dimmesdale is on the scaffold, Hester and Pearl join him and a comet flashes across the sign forming the letter A, coincidence? None of the townspeople saw the family standing on the scaffold: 1. because it was late at night and 2. Dimmesdale would suffer a greater punishment than he has now if they were to be seen. "... a great red letter in the sky—the letter A, which we interpret to stand for Angel. For, as our good Governor Winthrop was made an angel this past night, it was doubtless held fit that there should be some notice thereof" (Hawthorne 334). The scarlet letter gaining another meaning, angel, for the

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