Scarlet Letter R/D #2

Audrey Schultz Schultz 1
April 27,2011
English 1B

The Scarlet Letter

In reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne I chose to use the Reader Response Theory. I am interested in the social values and the concepts of good and evil that are being portrayed in the novel. There are two specific characters in the novel that I chose to focus my interest in and they are Hester Prynne and Pearl. The reason for choosing these two characters is because they together have to share in the burden of being marked as sinners of evil in the eyes of the Puritans belief system.
Hester Prynne a young women, lady-like, with a tall figure of perfect elegance with dark and abundant hair, so glossy that it threw off the sunshine with a gleam, and her face with a richness of complexion and the impressiveness belonging to a marked brow and deep black eyes.(40) The observers envied her grace and beauty, but most of all they envied the way she walked out with her head held high and the Scarlet Letter, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom.(41) The women spectators feel a slap in their face; for they feel that Hester is mocking them with her beautiful stitch work of the scarlet letter, as if laughing in the faces of their godly magistrates, and making a pride out of her punishment of sin. She has committed Adultry.
Even though she wore the letter of sin, “The A for Adultry” every one saw Hester Prynne in a different perspective. She held herself with natural dignity and force of character. Everyone who knew Hester prior to her sin, expected to behold her dimmed and obscured by a disastrous cloud, were astonished, and even startled, to perceive how her beauty shone out. (40)
The following are some examples of The Puritan’s laws and punishment if laws were broken according to their beliefs:
1. Benefit of Clergy- the convicted may plead benefit of clergy, in which case, if they can read a passage from the Bible without one mistake, their sentence will be reduced.
2. Stocks- the convicted will have his head and hands placed in a locked stockade for the remainder of the day, and the community will be invited to pelt him with food. The convicted must clean up anything he is pelted with.
*3. Wearing a sign- a milder punishment than branding. The convicted must make their own sign to hang around their neck, which indicates their crime.
*4. Branding-the convicted is marked with letters that stands for their crime. HT for hog thief, A for Adulterer. The branding can be on the cheek, forehead, or more mildly on the hand or finger.
5. Ducking stool- for women only, usually used in the case of gossip. The woman shall be confined in a chair and dunked in water.
6. Whipping- for men only, a common punishment. A number of “lashes” is administered to the convicted back. Lashes usually number from 5 to 20.
*7. Public shaming- a milder form of punishment, the convicted is pulled on a rope through the town while the community is invited to point fingers at him/her and tell him/her that they are naughty and pelt him/her with small objects.
The late 16 hundreds, the Puritans wrote the laws according to the Old Testament of what the Bible stated. And to what they thought should be a sin against God. The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony are a prime example of an extremist view of their religion. A religious fanatic is someone who takes his/her religion to the extreme, letting it control everything in his/her day to day life.
I believe that Dimmesdale