Shaming as Intolerable Punishment
In July 2002, Rudy Giuliani was dragged from his home at six in the morning by a squad of police officers. He was shoved into the back of the cab as his children and wife cried desperately after him all the while cameras roll and click, recording the event for public scrutiny. Similarly, In November of 2007, Reshane Lewis is glared at by local pedestrians as she trudges along outside the courthouse, sweat dripping from her face, while being forced to carry a sign reading: “I stole from a local store.” Both are publicly humiliated, without any recognition by enforcers of the harmful psychological consequences they may experience after such intolerable shaming. Giuliani and Lewis’ cases are the apotheosis of intolerable public shaming in which people can be completely dehumanized, hindering their chances to cope from such incidences, and doing little to effectively deter crime. “In Better than jail time? Some Judges try unusual sentences” Peter Miller, a Putnam County Judge, among the many other judges who look towards public shaming as a form of punishment, personally handled Reshane Lewis’ case as well as six-hundred others, granting immoral sentences as part of his standard punishment. “They are unusual, but most of them are not as cruel as sending someone to jail or prison” (Miller.) However, Suzanne Retzinger and Thomas Scheff argue that Judge Miller is dead wrong, in “Shame-Based Punishment May Not Be an Effective Alternative”. Contrary to the
Butler 2 more radical approaches of shaping behavior executed by Judge Miller, Suzanne M. Retzinger, family relations mediator at the Superior Court in Ventura, California and Thomas Scheff, sociologist and professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara believe that “shame is a complex emotion and current shame-based punishments ignore the harmful psychological consequences that an individual may experience after shaming” (Retzinger). In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester is publicly shamed as she is forced to remain on the scaffold of humiliation for two hours all the while townsfolk curse her name, and go as far to say “she ought to die” and have the A “branded on her forehead in hot iron.” (Hawthorne 39). After such grueling humiliation, she is cast out among the others, living with her daughter Pearl, in complete isolation from society, let alone a shred of acceptance or love. As a result of this isolation, “Much of the marble coldness of Hester’s impression was to be attributed to the circumstance, that her life had turned, in a great measure, from passion and feeling, to thought…but which our forefathers, had they known it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter” (Hawthorne 125). Denoting that Hester had lost her sense of compassion as a result of everyone denying her of any sympathy.
Studies of shame based punishment today claim that there may be a better alternative to humiliating offenders that instead allows for their reintegration in the community, known as victim-offender mediation, where the offender confesses his crime and recognizes its consequences for the victim. “Evidence is now available that victim-offender mediation is not only cheaper than court and prison, but also more effective in decreasing recidivism” and “mediation could transform prosecutors attitudes toward their job and toward offenders, since it allows them to see offenders and victims as human beings”(Scheff). This is not to say courts and prisons are not necessary. Their very existence leads to many confessions and plea bargains
Butler 3 because many if not most offenders confess or plea bargain in order to avoid trial and imprisonment. The existing court system serves many necessary functions, but it no longer need be the first line of defense against crime.
For centuries, shaming often rears its ugly head in court cases, literature, and
John Alexander Mrs. Alvarado AP LaC III- 4th Period 30 September 2014 The Scarlett Letter Essay In chapter 15, “Hester and Pearl,” paragraph 1 from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, tone plays a key component in determining the Hester’s view towards Chillingworth. Hawthorne’s powerful use of language provides the reader with an image of a raggedy old man, his deleterious actions to all around him, and important imagery that oxymoronically displays his evil. This man is Chillingworth…
Debate confession is good for the soul as it relates to the novel? The novel The Scarlett Letter introduced confession is good for the soul; Confession means an acknowledgment or disclosure of sin or sinfulness (dictionary.com). Confession becomes a major role in the lives of every character. From punishing themselves to torturing others because of their sin, after a while not confessing will lead them to build guilt. The novel begins off by stating the main character and the starting conflict. Hester…
The story The Scarlet Letter begins in seventeenth-century Boston, then a settlement. A young woman, Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter, Pearl, in her arms and the scarlet letter “A” was placed on her breast. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester’s husband, a scholar who is much older than she is, sent her ahead to America, but he never arrived in Boston. The rumor was that he had been lost at sea. Little…
often seen as an evil temptresses and their actions seem to cause chaos in a previously untroubled society. This use of women as destructive forces is clear in the Bible, when Eve is announced as the cause of original sin. However, in The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne portrays the image of a woman who can make her own decisions without causing destruction to society. Throughout Hawthorne’s story he allows Hester to represent feminist qualities. A feminist is a person who believes women are equal to men…
Daniel Hawthorne’s Sarcasm Daniel Hawthorne writes The Scarlet Letter to express his disdain to the puritans. He is completely against them even though he has personal ties with them through his grandfather who was a puritan judge. Hawthorne is so ashamed to be a part of this he changes his last name from Hawthorn to Hawthorne trying to separate the ties with himself and the puritans. The sarcastic tone in The Scarlet Letter conveys Hawthorne’s disapproval to the hypocrisy of the puritans. Hawthorne…
Scarlett Letter Analysis Essay “Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart” (Hawthorne, Scarlett letter). Inquiring the power of love, as well as flirting with human sentiments Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “The Scarlett Letter” over the struggles of a condemned outlaw in the “Holy” Puritan society. Hester Prynne the protagonist in the story, a woman who initiated from Europe is targeted to a world of drama where she is imprisoned for adultery in the Puritan…
Feminist of Her Time The time period that The Scarlett Letter was based off of was the mid 17th century. During this time period in England the religion was based out of the Church of England. This religion had stemmed off of the Roman Catholic Church which had been developed some 200 years earlier. However, many of the Catholic Church practices were not followed through on in the Church of England. Some of these practices included the emphasis on works and the veneration of the saints. This story…
The possession of guilt can be very overpowering, especially when living in the Puritan era. As a result, guilt can drive people to commit acts they would normally think of as being inconceivable. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlett Letter, characters have to live with some form of guilt. When faced with guilt, a people can either face their actions or run from them. Hawthorne reveals the evils that emerge from characters when they conceal their sins. As a result, Hawthorne shows how characters…
Importance of the scaffold scenes – The Scarlet Letter The scaffold scenes are by far the most popular means of pointing out the perfect balance and structure of Hawthorne’s masterpiece. The first time we meet all the characters of the novel is in the first scaffold scene. The second of three scaffold scenes appears in the middle of the novel. Again, Hawthorne gathers all of his major characters in one place. Hawthorne brings all the characters together one more time in the…
VI: Hawthorne utilizes the extremist Puritan lifestyle in comparison to his time period (1840-1850s) to convey the need gender equality. A. Extinct Puritanism 1. “His fiction, which has survived the changing tastes of many generations and is more admired today than it was when it was written, is fueled by an awareness of guilt that accompanies a Puritan conscience. This shadow of guilt appears to have darkened Hawthorne’s life. The source of darkness is thought to lie in Hawthorne’s illustrious…