Argumentative Essay: The Scarlett Letter

The Scarlett Letter Argumentative Essay In the Scarlett Letter by Hawthorn, public humiliation is used as a form of punishment. In that place and time period, the seventeenth century, Puritanical Boston, Massachusettes, this form of punishment was quite common. There was no separation of church and state at that time and since Puritan beliefs were based on good versus evil, it was a common practice to humiliate, chastise, and berate people as a scare tactic to keep order. Fast forward to the Twenty First Century. We clearly have seperation of church and state. People are not allowed to be discriminated against in any way, shape or form. We have constitutional rights that allow for freedom of speech. Our society ,in this country, …show more content…
Individuals cited in these articles do not seem to find it that unpleasant to be put out in public with signs of guilt hung around their neck for all the world to see. The man who was caught speed racing in the shopping center stated out loud that he would be happy to dtand out on the street with a sign that get sent back to jail. Mrs. Lavender, from the American Civil Liberties made an excellent point when she expressed the fact that humiliating the offender in that case did nothing to better anyone else and that community service would be a much better choice than public humiliation. Maybe our society is at a point where we are so self-absorbed, pre-occupied, stressed out, or worried about our own problems that no one really pays that much attention to others around us. Maybe we just don 't care, or maybe we don 't want to judge each other these days. It is hard to say why people do not feel as intimidated or ashamed as they did back in the 17th Century. Whatever the reason is, public humiliation in today 's society is not an effective measure for keeping people from doing whatever it is that they wanted to