Hi I’m Eric Morrison and I will be talking about the essential question I came up with for the novel Scarlet Letter

One common phrase heard when you meet a significant other is to trust your gut! But where do we get this gut instinct? Well, our instincts help us with making these decisions, and our brain also plays a role in the fast decision making. We also hear the phrase to never judge a book by its cover, but most of us do judge. But the is not a good way to go. Maybe a certain facial expression or a certain feature could change a persons overall view of them. A lot of the time, people will look at facial expressions to see how a person might truly be or act. An example would be if someone makes minimal eye contact, they could either be nervous or they could be hiding something. We also use our instincts to judge people. For some people, past experiences could change your judgement of someone. Everyone has a certain feeling for one one else, but this can be altered in many different ways.

Religion: During this time period, religion was basically the foundation of a person and what their status would be. If someone did anything against the church, they would perish in many different ways. One of these ways was through public shaming and prison time. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester has an affair with an unknown man and to the church this is a great sin or shame. because of this sin, she needs to be punished and so she has to serve time in prison and suffer through public shaming.

Relationship: One major factor in relationships is trust. If a couple or marriage does not have trust then the relationship will not last. An example of trust in a relationship is trusting that the other companion will not cheat on the other or dishonor them in any form. In the Scarlet Letter, Hester goes with another man, Dimmesdale, and at her public shaming she sees her real husband, Chillingworth. Chillingworth tells Hester to not share who the adulterer is, and he also swears that he will find the father of Pearl.

Family: Family, during this time, involves many different parts. The husband is usually the one making the money for the family. If a widow is running the family, the she will have to provide for her family with help from the children in some sort of beneficial ways. Families are also connected to the church in different ways like involvement in the church or the husband and father being a position in the church. In the Scarlet Letter, Pearl’s father, Pastor Dimmesdale, is the man who Hester had an affair with. This could cause problems in Dimmesdale’s life because he is a high and well respected pastor in the community. This is why he has not confessed that he is the father to Pearl in public yet.