The Culmination of Public Shame and Its Effects on the Person

In 'The Price of Shame' the Lewinsky States 'In 1998, I lost my reputation and my dignity. I lost almost everything. And I almost lost my life.' (6:01). Now speaking from the present generation of children that will be the head of this world, one day we have been exposed to social media, some even possessed it in their whole lives and this Interweb connection is a new level of communication the foreword can spread like the flu. Due to the fact of this being the case this can wreck one's career shattered their lives and affect their lives the way they live and how they feel. This is shown in not only one, but all of our sources in the 'The Price of Shame', a talk from Monica Lewinsky the woman that was involved in the scandalous activities with her boss Bill Clinton, she talks about how this affected her and how it destroyed her self-image without people barely distinguishing the true her. This is also indicated in 'The Scarlet Letter' The story about a young woman, Hester Prynne, who was found guilty of adultery with Arthur Dimmesdale another high-power man. Ultimately, this is indicated in 'The Danger of Public Shaming in the Internet Age' The news article about the YouTube Logan Paul, who videotaped the body of a man hanging in the Aokigahara forest and tantalize on the internet and lost his YouTube account considering popularity. This source talks about the subsequent level of communication the internet can bring to the problem. But the thing these sources have in common is that the public shame that these people receive can terminate one's career, shattered their lives, and transform their lives the way they live and how they feel.

Primarily in both sources 'The Scarlet Letter' and in 'The Price of Shame' they both share their lives getting ruined by an affair with a man of higher standing. This altering how they are in public and what they did for a living. In both of these sources, you can note how this destroyed their careers and how they were in public. One can perceive this vividly in 'The Scarlet Letter' and Hawthorne writes 'the men of a higher power will no longer receive their clothes from Hester' (32 Hawthorne). This is a grandiose quote from the book. This is essential to what the public shame can do to a person, it shows that just because of this one act (and remember this is not 2019 this is 1690s puritan culture) they, also, granted her the benefit of the doubt and said that her husband was gone. But it demonstrates that just because she is accused of this crime that one cannot get clothes from her, so this is hurting her life. Without her making cloths, how is she is supposed to have a life and make a living? So, this is on top of her being treated like a shame with the scarlet letter on her chest. This is also indicated in 'The Price of Shame'. In the price of shame Lewinsky writes 'What that meant for me independently was that overnight, I went from being a completely private figure to a publicly humiliated one, worldwide. I was patient zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously.' (3:50) This shows how this devastated her life and her career. This ruined respect for her because of this one act that she was accused of doing the whole world lost respect for her. This is identified in both sources that one action leads to a whole chain reaction and it destroys the person's image, their careers, and how they are looked upon as people. No one got to know both of these people personally, they just started attacking and slut-shaming them for what they both lost their jobs due to what the people did, and they did it without perceiving what they were going through and how they were as people. In summary, this shows how much damage that public shaming can do to one's career and how much it can affect someone's life.

Secondly, in both sources 'The Scarlet Letter' and in 'The Danger of Public Shaming in the Internet Age', it highlights a good example of how public shame can ruin how someone feels about themselves and they both show how an honest mistake or a blunder can make someone feel like they are just a failure to the world. In 'The Scarlet Letter' you can see what this does to Hester Prynne. Hester Hawthorne writes' Hester regains some of her former, passionate beauty, and she lets down her hair and smiles.' (205). This quote is from chapter 18 of 'The Scarlet Letter' and this is when Hester withdraws the letter from her bosom, and of course the A symbolizes all of the public shame and its shadow on her and it demonstrates that when she removes this it metaphorically shows that she never had to go through this public shame and it makes her like a new person because it removes the weight of the shame of her shoulder. This is in the same sense what happened to Logan Paul in 'The Danger of Public Shaming in the Internet Age' Mohammad writes 'Paul apologized multiple times, then finally withdrew from YouTube entirely, saying he was taking time to reflect.' so this shows that this also destroyed his life and it caused him to leave because it was such a pressure that it destroyed his mind. It was too much, and he could not take it anymore.

In both sources, it shows how Public Shaming can affect a person physically and mentally. In conclusion, it shows how not only can this public shaming affect one's job or career, but it affects what is more important. It can affect one's personal life. It can affect someone's mental health more important than anything. So, in all three of these sources 'The Scarlet Letter' the 'The Danger of Public Shaming in the Internet Age' and lastly 'The Price of Shame' it shows what the effects of public shame are on a person and how it can affect not only their business life but how it also can affect their personal life. Could it all be in benevolence to the people accused and they just took it to another degree or is it meant to detriment the person? Is it important to castigate a person for doing these kinds of actions with public shaming or not?