Public Shame in The Scarlet Letter and The Price of Public Shame Essay Example

Public shame single-handedly can be the most controversial topic that is talked about amongst today’s society. Most people tend to think that public shame and humiliation are for the better than for the worse. Others will say that it is more detrimental than it is good. But what is public shaming to its full extent? Public shaming is when someone is humiliated or called out in front of many people for the terrible thing they have done. With this in mind, it is easy to see why some people choose sides when asked to do so. Source A  The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Source B  “The Price of Public Shame” spoken by Monica Lewinski, and Source C “The Impact of Public Shaming in a Digital World” by Sue Scheff all elaborate on how public shame either ruined their personal life, their professional life, or their social life and reputation. Public shame in many ways can be detrimental to the human mind. This shame can affect you mentally and physically. It can influence the way society views you, and it can play a part in your reputation. 

To begin, the social effects of public shame can be destructive. Whether it’s your reputation at home, work, or at school, shame can cause the feeling of being unwanted in life. Source B, a TED Talk called “The Price of Public Shame” spoken by Monica Lewinsky includes detailed points about how Public shame impacted her life and society around her. In this talk, Monica explains how her past mistakes have caused a chain reaction that was greater than anything she’d ever expected. What brought her to the stage was something that happened in 1998. When she was only 22, she had an affair with the President of the United States, who just so happened to be Bill Clinton. At this time, the internet was just becoming a big thing. The way this ties into public shame is because once the news got out, Monica Lewinsky was shamed almost everywhere. She explains, “I was patient zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously” (Lewinsky 03:44). A little more into the talk she says, “In 1998, I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost almost everything. And I almost lost my life” (06:01). Both of these quotes dig into the true effects of public shame and how it affected her socially. Just like Monica’s story, Hester Prynne from the book, “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, had almost the same experience as Monica did. When Hester Prynne’s secret came out to the public, she was shamed, and she was shamed terribly. Socially, she was done for. There was no coming back from the crime that she committed with Dimmesdale. Once the affair had occurred, Hester was instantly shunned from the Puritan Society that revolved around her. Hawthorne states in chapter 2, “It had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself” (Hawthorne 62). This quote is describing how Hester immediately became the talk of the town since she committed the horrible act of adultery. Not only was she forced into her own realm, everyone in the Puritan town despised her greatly. For example, “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die; Is there not a law for it?” (Hawthorne 59). This quote was spoken by a female that was in the crowd at the time. Her voice was practically a representation of what everyone else in the town was thinking. Overall, both sources include specific details about how public shaming can be detrimental to social status.

Just like socially, public shame can be detrimental towards someone in a more professional manner. It is clear to see how this shame can ruin Monica’s social status in her TED Talk, “The Price of Public Shame”, but it also affected her professionally. She states, “A few days later, the Starr Report is released to Congress, and all of those tapes and transcripts, those stolen words, form a part of it. That people can read the transcripts is horrific enough” (Lewinsky 07:48). Here she is explaining how her private phone call became publicly known in a short period of time. Her status in her professional life was instantly demolished, and she was frowned upon by her fellow coworkers. No one ever thought that this could happen in a place like the White House, but it did, and it happened to Monica. Shortly after the scandal, she was dismissed from the White House and sent to the Pentagon. By this time, everyone knew her business, and her private life was now placed into the public hands. Source C, the article, “The Impact of Public Shaming in a Digital World” by Sue Scheff, relates to Monica’s speech, but it’s written in a more general speaking type of way. In paragraph 23 Scheff states, “It didn’t take long for social feeds to light up and publicly shame both Sanders and Red Hen, especially since there was another restaurant in Connecticut with the same name struggling to let people know it wasn’t them”. Here, she is explaining how one instance of public shaming caused a different restaurant to be slammed by the public because they had the same name as another restaurant that went through a scandal. Professionally, their business came to a halt since people did not look fully into what restaurant created the whole mess. In many cases, it is clear to see how public shame can not only be detrimental to someone socially and physically, but it can also be harmful in professional ways too. 

The topics on how public shame can affect someone socially and professionally have been covered, but how does it affect someone personally? In “The Impact of Public Shaming in a Digital World” by Sue Scheff also brings up some great points on how personally, public shaming can be just as detrimental. She states, “In the most extreme cases of online harassment, we have seen the worst-case repercussions over and over again: young people taking their own lives and adults losing their livelihoods” (Scheff paragraph 16). Public shame has taken such a toll on people, that they have even considered taking their own lives. Some people start shaming others for fun, or because they need to get something off their chest, but they do not know the true consequences their actions could have. Words like “digital daggers” and “form of harassment” make an appearance to emphasize how bad this shame can be. The way The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne ties into this is because Hester Prynne also felt the effects of public shame on a personal level. Hawthorne writes, “Yet Hester was hardly safe in confiding in herself to that gusty tenderness; it passed as suddenly as it came. Brooding over all these matters, the mother felt like the one who has evoked a spirit, but, by some irregularity in the process of conjuration, has failed to win the master-word that should control this new and incomprehensible intelligence” (Hawthorne 102). Hester in this situation is in a tremendous amount of stress since the public humiliation has caused her to think in a way that she feels as if everything bad is all her fault since she was blamed for almost everything. She has held up a front that shows everyone that it doesn’t bother her, but internally she is crumbling. From these two sources it is clear to see that in many different ways, public shame can be disastrous to the human mind

It is clear to see that in, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Price of Public Shame” by Monica Lewinski, and “The Impact of Public Shaming in a Digital World” by Sue Scheff, public shaming and humiliation can be harmful to one’s mental health. This embarrassment can have a mental and physical impact, that it goes as far as rewiring one’s brain into thinking they’re not good enough. It also has the potential to shape how society perceives you and affect your reputation. In many ways, this shame can be very beneficial. Being publicly shamed may stop many mistakes, but it can be damaging and life-threatening.