Scarlet Letter Crucible Sythesis

Rachael Kerr
AP English 11
February 25, 2010
Scarlet Letter, The Crucible Synthesis

Sin and Its Necessarily Public Penitence
Sin is what keeps humans from divinity; how people deal with sin is how they can differentiate themselves. People can either atone for their sins, or completely ignore that they did them. Repentance is difficult, even for the greatest people, for pride is constantly overriding moral decisions. Some people believe that they need to be forgiven or even feel sorry; even if they do, why does it matter? Is it not said that only God may judge? By forcing someone to apologize, and seeing them badly if they do not do so, are humans not stepping on the Almighty’s toes? Excuses, excuses. To get around this, many people believe that by not speaking of what was done, over time the sin will fade into nothingness. Like footsteps on the sandy shore of life, the waves of time will wash away any traces of mistakes or wrongdoings. Simply because there is no light in the room does not make it empty, a simple inspection will undoubtedly reveal chairs and tables. When a human being ignores their sin they believe it is gone forever, but repression is never helpful and almost always hurtful; public repentance always has the best outcome with redemption and how that person is seen. Not only is this perfectly noticeable in everyday life, but in literature as well. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, affairs take place, in each couple with one character speaking out about what happened, and the other remaining silent. In both examples, the character that speaks out always is a better viewed character with more positive happenings, and the silent character is punished. In The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, public repentance is more effective because it causes the characters to actually take responsibility for their actions, leading to moral growth, whereas private repentance leads to pain and anguish.
The prime example of triumph from public confession is from The Scarlet Letter. Hester Prynne confessed her sins to the public in the very beginning, which saved her in the end and even made her a better person. While her husband was away, she had an affair and became pregnant; therefore she had no way to keep her affair a secret. Her punishment was cruel and unusual by today’s standard, but ended with amazing results. The townspeople forced her to wear a scarlet ‘A’ to let everyone know she was an adulterer, and then made her stand on a scaffold in the town square. As all eyes are fixed on her, Hester experienced the consequences of what she had done. By having no way to back out of her punishment and dealing with it head on, Hester was able to repent more effectively. An interesting factor was Hester’s A; they made her stitch it herself, and as she leaves the jail where they kept her, she held her head high displaying the baby and her A; “The young woman… with a burning blush, and yet a haughty smile…looked around…On the breast of her gown, in fine red cloth, surrounded with an elaborate embroidery and…gold thread, appeared the letter A” (Hawthorne 50). Hester specifically makes her A gaudy because she wants everyone to look at it. Hester understand what she did was very wrong and that she deserves to be punished for it. Although it is very painful and damaging for her, Hester goes through her public punishment anyway.
As the story continues, the nature of the townspeople towards her undergoes a large change. They began to change the meaning of her scarlet letter: “Many people refused to interpret the scarlet A by its original signification. They said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a woman’s strength” (146). Compared to other characters in the novel, Hester is viewed as most pious, generous, and dedicated. She is able to have her child and get through her penance and remain a good person because she was forced to repent immediately and without mercy. By having this extreme penance, she was redeemed the most. The reader views Hester as a good character throughout the book because of her full public repentance, which gives her the air of fully honest and strong-willed.
John Proctor from The Crucible was ashamed of what he had done, and tried to hide his affair. Only three people knew in the beginning: himself, the girl he got involved with Abigail Williams, and his wife Elizabeth. Elizabeth constantly scolded him for it, making it seem that public humiliation would be the worst way to go. However, it was the best option that he denied. After having Elizabeth swear she would tell no one, Proctor goes to court. During the court, Proctor must prove that Abigail is not the holy tool they make her out to be. The only way to do that is to admit to lechery. When Proctor finally does, there is a slight enlightening in the court but they cannot be sure he is truthful. Declaring that his wife knows, the court calls in Elizabeth. Of course she does not say anything, wishing to protect her husband, leading to distrust from the court. This situation could have been avoided all together if Proctor had confessed to lechery in the first place.
Eventually, Proctor is able to capture the courts understand, and their view of Abigail changes. From this point on, the reader notices a change in Proctor as well; he is more proud and resilient, defying the courts. Proctor becomes more respectable and certainly more admirable, and he is able to die willingly. Proctor does not agree to sign his statement that he works for the devil, because by doing this he condemns himself and others. In addition to a death sentence, Proctor will not sign for another reason; “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!...I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (143). He prides his name because it represents all that he is, and now that he confessed, he feels that he means more.
Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale from The Scarlet Letter wanted desperately to be revealed as Hester has, for he was the one with whom she cheated. Dimmesdale kept his sin a secret, fearing the consequences, perhaps not for himself though. He continues to attempt confessions, using vague language but never saying it outright. Dimmesdale goes through a vicious cycle in his attempts to repent for his sin. The cycle began with Dimmesdale’s sin; Dimmesdale hates sin. He then feels the need to repent because of this hate. However, he cannot repent because it will shake the faith of the townspeople. He does not risk the damage because he holds the Christian faith as most important. Following, he feels need to do something, more precisely say something. So, he preaches to the people how bad he is. By doing this, they only put him on a higher pedestal and bask in his deeper shadow: “if [Dimmesdale] discern such sinfulness in his own white soul, what horrid spectacle would he behold in thine or mine!”(131). Finally by being more highly revered, Dimmesdale hates himself even more, which begins the cycle again. In the end with his dying breath, Dimmesdale confesses to his affair with Hester.
During most of the novel there are two conflicting views of Dimmesdale; either he is a concerned, pious man, or a cowardly one. Dimmesdale was viewed in a positive light because while he did not confess, he sure enough suffered. He suffered because he actually cared for the people, and sacrificed his health for their religion. However, Dimmesdale was very well a coward in some respects. He made plenty of attempts to confess, but only once did he actually explain exactly what he did. When he confessed, he died right after so he would not go through the consequences.
Abigail Williams from The Crucible felt empowered by forcing Proctor to cheat on his wife and did not attempt to repent in the least. Until Proctor revealed the two of them, she had thought it would remain a secret forever. Instead of feeling any sort of guilt for her sin, Abby viewed it as love between herself and Proctor. She then utilizes this vision to fuel her desire for Proctor. Abby twists her clearly malevolent intentions to eliminate Elizabeth, into a romantic crusade. This war for love is only desired by Abby, Proctor has no intention of ever being with her; “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I'll ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby” (23). This infuriated Abby, pushing her to enact her vengeance, the entire time using Proctor’s lechery as blackmail to keep him from interfering. During this fiasco, Abby viewed her sin as a good thing and nothing but.
Through her wicked, selfish nature Abigail is a very off-setting character for the reader; there are several reasons that she is seen as an obvious antagonist. One is by using the protagonist Proctor for her own selfish gain. Two is because she feels no remorse by any of the damage caused by her reckless nature. This leads to three, because she makes absolutely no attempt to repent for her sins, and actually intended on keeping it a secret. By going the complete opposite direction of repentance, Abby’s end is worse than that of any character: “The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston” (146). The reader is completely satisfied by this ending because she was a snide, contemptuous, immoral young girl only worthy of a loveless end.
By publicly atoning for one’s sins, a person is able to get the full redemption. Because peers are mostly harsh and unrelenting in their punishment, public confessions are not well received. By exacting an extreme amount of punishment, a sinner is able to see how bad their sin really was. Only through harsh consequences will a human learn the degree of their mistakes; this idea is called negative reinforcement. For example, if a dog tears up a pillow and the owner proceeds to give the dog a harmless yet firm smack on the nose with a newspaper, eventually the dog will associate the impulse to tear up something with a negative result like being struck. For humans the principle is the same; by receiving such shame and degradation, a sinner will always remember that feeling and take that sensation into consideration when faced with the option to sin. By privately bearing a sin, a person can find ways to make the sin not seem so bad. As human beings, people want to protect themselves, and because of pride they will attempt to create excuses. However if the guilty person were brought before others, they would not fair so well. In The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, the characters that confess to their sins publicly are redeemed more greatly by the end of the book because it causes them to actually take responsibility for their actions. Hester began with public confession and lived a good life, Proctor began in private and half way through confessed publicly and he died an honorable death, Dimmesdale remained private until he used his last breath to confess then died with hints of cowardice, and Abigail never confessed publicly at all and became a prostitute. Comparing this series of decaying publicity and happy endings, it is plain to be seen that public penance is much more effective in higher doses. After all, if one cannot be truthful to others about the bad one has done, how can they be expected to believe in the good?









Work Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. New York: Bantam, 1850.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin, 1976.