Who Is Public Shamed In The Scarlet Letter

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Public shaming is one of the oldest forms of punishment around. It is also one of the most simple ways to punish someone. Whether it be forcing someone to stand on a scaffold for all of their town to come and laugh at, or it may be that they have to walk through the streets of their home town completely shackled, allowing for everyone to know what they did; Either way, public shaming is a horrible punishment to put someone through. Being convicted of a crime is bad, then being sentenced to jail time is even worse, but to add public shaming, it seems like way too much. Society is obsessed with giving people what they think they deserve, not what they actually deserve. Public shaming should no longer be used as a punishment because it does not…show more content…
Hester is put up on a scaffold for three hours and must wear a large Scarlet A on her chest for the rest of her life. Even though the Church put all of this effort into making an example of Hester, it did not have a huge effect because not a lot of people would have sex outside of marriage back then. “Measured by the prisoner's experience, however, it might reckoned a journey of some length; for, haughty as her demeanor was, she perchance underwent an agony from every footstep of those that thronged to see her, as if her heart had been flung in the street for them all to spurn and trample upon.”(Hawthorne 62) This quote illustrates Hester’s pain, both physically and mentally, and it is a bit depressing. This has no effect on society, because one sad person cannot bring down an entire nation. If public shaming were going on people would watch to make fun of the person, not to go and learn a lesson about adultery. Another reason why public shaming is uneffective is that a lot of the time people will not “rat out” their partner in crime. "If thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, and that thy earthly punishment will thereby be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer!"(Hawthorne 55) Here, Hester here did not rat out the father, but instead stood silent. Public shaming has…show more content…
Chinese police took suspected prostitutes into custody and forced them to parade around streets in shackles, trying to get them to confess to the crime and to get the names of other workers. “There are more modern tools for law enforcement,” Professor Mao Shoulong, said. “Besides, if these kinds of tactics are allowed, the police will get used to dealing with problems outside of the law.”(New York Times) What Professor Mao Shoulong said is completely right. Public shaming has become so completely useless that the police are using it as an interrogation tactic to try to get confessions. Even though they police did publically humiliate all of these people, the tactic of public shaming is severally ineffective. Not only did the police not convict those alleged prostitutes, they ended up not getting any other names either, which shows how ineffective this method really is. The point of publicly shaming someone is to make them learn their lesson, but here they just embarrassed some innocent people accused of crimes they never committed. “Repetition can increase pressure and help force change, but ultimately it will take a great deal of political will to implement these kinds of changes.”(New York Times) Even Professor Mao Shoulong agrees that public shaming can increase pressure and may help force change, but it will take a lot more than parading suspects around the
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