What Is The Difference Between The Scarlet Letter And The Price Of Shame

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Through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and Monica Lewinsky’s “The Price of Shame”, the two authors prove that society thrives on the shame and humiliation of others. Both pieces of writing show a person being overpowered by shame which is brought upon by society and their communities. Shame and humiliation from society creates no privacy for an individual. With people of society thriving on the shame of an individual, one has to live with their humalitation forever. Public shaming within society has the ability to push shame to the next level. Society can push shame to overpower an individual for one mistake. In Monica Lewinsky’s TedTalk, “The Price of Shame”, Lewinsky speaks about her own shame but also talks about the shame of …show more content…

In “The Price of Shame”, Lewinsky creates the image of being a private person to becoming someone everyone is talking about. She says, “I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one”(TedTalk). Once the public learned about Lewinsky’s incident, society pushed its curiosity to create a new public life for her. The life of Lewinsky will be forever changed; she will never be able to live a private life again. Similar to Lewinsky, Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter also has to live a public life put upon her by society. Hester Prynne is a married woman whose husband has not been seen in two years. During these two years, Hester has an affair with the minister of her town resulting in Hester having a baby. Because the town knows that Hester is married she is charged with adultery, living with the public shame of the scarlet letter. Hawthrone writes, “was that SCARLET LETTER, so fantastically embroidered and illuminated upon her bosom”(Hawthorne 37). With the scarlet letter Hester will always be reminded of her mistakes. Hester’s new mark is seen by everyone in the community making her now a public figure. Society sees this symbol and only sees the shame and humiliation of the person wearing it, not the real person inside. Society is able to take the shame of one person and change their life for the

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