Morality and Ethics of The Scarlet Letter
Uploaded by blkbelt121 on Feb 04, 2008
Verdict: Guilty
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of moral and ethical controversy that reigns throughout the entire novel. The novel starts out with a woman named Hester Prynne standing on a scaffold in the city of Boston so all the town could see her. Her crime was adultery with an un-named man, and her punishment was to wear a letter “A” on her bosom for the rest of her life. Because of the mark of her sin, Hester lived a life of exile, not so much physically, but emotionally. Hester still lived in the town of Boston and was allowed to walk the streets and market place; however, she was not spoken to except to be ridiculed, and the only time people wanted anything to do with her was when they desired her fine skills as a seamstress. Also during this time, a man named Roger Chillingworth appeared in the town and became Arthur Dimmesdale’s physician. The reader knows Dimmesdale to be Hester’s partner in her sin, and Chillingworth is revealed to the reader to be Hester’s husband. Because of Chillingworth’s close proximity with Dimmesdale at all times, Chillingworth discovers Dimmesdale’s secret and torments the man’s soul. Knowing all of this, the reader must ask themselves, “Who is the guiltiest?” The answer is, the Puritan Society as a whole, which includes the entire community, and also Hester Pryne, Arthur Dimmsdale, and Roger Chillingworth as individuals.
In order to really determine that the Puritan Society is the guiltiest in this novel, one must first determine what morals and ethics are. In Arthur Holmes book, Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions he explains that, "ethics is about the good (that is, what values and virtues we should cultivate) and about the right (that is, what our moral duties may be)” (Fider 2). With this definition, one can conclude that all of these people “sinned,” but the way in which others responded was not morally right, especially in the Puritan times. In the Gospel of John, Jesus encounters a crowd of people who are about to stone an adulterer and wanting his recognition. However, Jesus looks to them and says, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” (New King James Version, John 8. 7). Therefore, because the Puritan society of...