rged from the gloom of this dark society’s punishment. For her crime of adultery, she faced the most commonly used punishment—public humiliation. Although this involved no physical harm, its use in such a proper society brought ridicule and shame paralleling a punishment as harsh as death itself. Hester stood amidst the crowd for three tortuous hours, struggling to withstand the burning glares of the townspeople feeling, “as if she must needs shriek out with the full power of her lungs, and cast herself from the scaffold down upon the ground, or else go mad at once.” (40). This display was made even more severe because she was also sentenced “to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom,” the letter “A”, for the rest of her life (43). The scarlet symbol for adultery branded Hester as a sinner to others, and when she was alone it burned like fire into her innermost heart to remind her of the life-shattering punishment society sentenced her for a single sin. For some sins, Puritan law demanded much more than an embroidered letter to transform a criminal into a living sermon of sin. Some crimes, such as witchcraft in The Crucible, called for death itself to be the example set for society. Punishment in Salem, Massachusetts was very rash; people were put in jail without justifiable evidence due to the schemes of the “inflicted” girls. Even the most honorable people like Rebecca Nurse, “the very brick and mortar of the church” were not immune to the Puritan policies of punishment, which were broken for no one (68). The jails filled as the accusations multiplied, but the lawmakers were too righteous to question if such honorable people could really be guilty justifying that, “Though our hearts break, we cannot flinch; these are new times” (69). Trials went into effect, and the promised hangings did occur when the innocent refused confession. Before the ...
