The Scarlet Letter

The Scarlet Letter

The Committed Crime or Tort

According to Brennan & Bermingham (2020), a tort is an omission or act that results in harm or injury to another. Torts are classified into strict liability, negligent, and intentional torts. Strict liability is the legal responsibility for injury or damage, even though the person guilty of strict liability was not negligent or at fault. Horsey & Rackley (2019) argues that in strict liability, the injured individual is not obligated to prove fault. On the other hand, an intentional tort is a wrong that the defendant should have known or knows would have led to their omissions or actions. These torts include trespassing and assault. Lastly, negligent torts arise when an individual’s actions are unsafe in an unreasonable way. In the Scarlet Letter, the crime committed by Hester Prynne was adultery. The crime was committed in the community because there were strict rules prohibiting adultery, and the punishment for the crime was communicated to all community members. Hester’s crime can be classified as intentional because she knew the consequences of adultery and still did it.

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The Outcome and Effects of the Crime

The outcome of Hester’s crime was being sentenced to wear a scarlet marked ‘A’ on her mark. The mark symbolized the word adultery and was intended to inform everyone that Hester had committed adultery. She lives a lonely life after her partner, Reverend Dimmesdale, whom she committed adultery with, dies, and she ends up ending her life. When I saw the tort, I recalled a scenario when my friend committed suicide due to cyberbullying when she was accused of going on vacation with a married man, yet she did not know that the man was married. Although the two scenarios may be different because Hester knew that she was committing adultery, they both expose how public judgment can result in severe emotional distress if there is no one to offer emotional support. For instance, Hester only thought of ending her life after her partner died because she was not receiving any emotional support. Similarly, my friend may have committed suicide because she did not receive emotional support from those around her, as people were cyberbullying her.

The Entertainment Level of the Dramatization in the Scene

I was entertained by the dramatization in the first scene, where the crowd was gathered to witness Hester’s hanging. After the drumbeats welcome everyone to the occasion, Henry is brought out of a room holding her child. She walks through the crowd, and some women in the crowd judge her for what she did (The Film Detective, 2018). The dramatization was entertaining because it demonstrated how people in the communities in the conventional world took judgment seriously and followed a specific procedure when delivering judgment for different crimes. I was surprised that the men in the crowd that had attended Hester’s judgment felt pity for her while women spoke badly of her and wanted her to receive a harsh judgment.

Reflection

The case of women working against each other, as portrayed in the scene, is also evident in modern society. This is quite saddening for me because I expect women to look after one another due to the prevalence of patriarchy in many communities. What saddens me most is that women in modern society rarely defend their counterparts accused of adultery and participate in shaming those who are accused of the crime by using channels such as social media channels to expose them. This is quite unfortunate because, in modern society, adultery has become prevalent, mainly due to the rising trend of married men looking for young girls who become dependent on the man to provide for them despite knowing their marital status. Unfortunately, these women are publicly criticized instead of being advised on what is morally right.

References

Brennan, C., & Bermingham, V. (2020). 1. Tort: Law and system. Tort Law Directions, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1093/he/9780198853923.003.0001

Horsey, K., & Rackley, E. (2019). Tort law. Oxford University Press, USA.

The Film Detective. (2018). The Scarlet Letter – Full movie | Colleen Moore, Hardie Albright, Henry B. Walthall, Virginia Howell [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/GwktKVIPiOg.

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BUS 210

Let’s apply deepening knowledge to something you’ve already been exposed to.

Part of this week’s lesson involved building a vocabulary of important terms that relate to the law. In doing so, you were exposed to many crimes and torts. Using this knowledge, think about a crime or tort you’ve seen publicized (on TV news, in the newspaper, on the radio, online, etc.) or dramatized (in a book, on a TV show, or in a movie). You can pick something as far-ranging as Hester Prynne’s crime in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter or the famous 1992 Piscataway, New Jersey murder and kidnapping of Gail Shollar that set a precedent for future cases.

The Scarlet Letter

Use your memory or do some online digging to recall details of the incident. What crime or tort was committed? By whom? To whom? What was the outcome? How were you affected by the crime or tort when you saw, heard, or read about it? Were you entertained by a dramatization? Why? Saddened or shocked by something in real life? Reflect on your feelings in regards to the experience both as you originally encountered it as well as now, given your deeper understanding of crimes and torts and how they are classified and punished.

Your assignment should be at least three paragraphs.

Liuzzo, A. (2021). Essentials of Business Law (11th Edition). McGraw-Hill Higher Education (US). https://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781264126507

Chapters: 1-6

01 Weblinks
Each week, this course will provide several web links to help you develop a wider understanding of the topics that were covered in the lectures. The information found on these websites will be a solid resource to deepen your knowledge in the field of Business Ethics and Law.

Library of Congress Digital Archive of the Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the foundation that all regulations and statutes are drawn upon. This elastic document has served as the cornerstone of both our democracy and our judicial system since the formation of the country. This website is the digital repository of the Constitution as preserved by the Library of Congress.

The United States Code
The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. It is divided by broad subjects into 50 titles and published by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives. Since 1926, the United States Code has been published every six years. In between editions, annual cumulative supplements are published in order to present the most current information.

Law Library of Congress Online Guide to Law
This website has been set up by the Law Library of the United States Congress. It is an excellent resource for researching both State and Federal Law. The sheer amount of material linked from these pages is almost incalculable. This site is mostly maintained for constitutional scholars and lawyers, but it is still an excellent resource to exploit during the course of this class.