In the book, “The Scarlet Letter,” Hester Prynne falls in love with someone else and commits the crime of adultery. Her community has given her a very unique punishment as well as a huge amount of shame and guilt thrown at her. Her punishment was to wear a prominent scarlet letter “A”. She wore it in hopes she could change the meaning of it to something more personal. The fact that this was the punishment the town chose for her, leads me to believe that her community values the idea of putting people through it for their wrong doings. Wearing the scarlet letter results in Hester losing all other identity. In the text it states, “Speak, woman!” said another voice cold and sternly, proceeding from the crowd about the scaffold…” This is an example of how invested the community is in Hester Prynne’s mistake. I’m sure they are this way with others as well. But, the town values loyalty and Hester Prynne wasn’t able to display that with her actions so she is continuously punished by her judgey community.

Mary Norton