This story is set in Massachusetts in the times when Puritans were the main religious view of the state (at the time, colony). The story is mainly about a woman who had an affair of sorts that ended up bringing about the birth of a child, but she won't say who the child is. Her punishment? She has to wear a scarlet letter (the letter wear) and stand for hours on some sort of scaffolding in front of one of the main buildings for the city to see her.
Why do they punish her in this way? After all, some of the people made the comment that they should kill her, as per usual punishment for such an act. Although this story does kind of seem written a sort of extreme style to kind of show the wrongness of how some extreme puritans or extreme religions may act in Hawthorne's mind, why this punishment?
Maybe it's to show that they can be merciful. Maybe it's to make her an example. Maybe it's so that they can show how without God, people make mistakes and amount to failures and sinners. Maybe it's to have her confess her sins so that God can restore her soul. Either way, I don't know if that's the point of this part of the story. Although it is clearly what's going on, I think Nathaniel Hawthorne is writing this part of the story to make a different point.
I believe that point is simply, "certain crimes are punished at a level undeserving of the crime (whether too much or too little).
I don't understand why this sin is punished more heavily than lying or cheating or stealing, when in God's eyes all sin is sin. I wonder, when did we decide as humans that sexual sin was so much worse than other types of sin?
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