This source begins to talk about what the bible says about revenge and how you should “punish a defender” but how Martin Luther King Jr. says that seeking revenge is gonna hurt both people in the end. It goes on to talk about how different cultures have different views on revenge, which would make something fine in one culture, but in some other cultures seeking revenge is not ok. Later on Price goes on to talk about when people are out seeking revenge, people's emotional state is not stable which can cause them to do something that in the end they didn’t want to do in the first place. That when you are seeking revenge, you are willing to sacrifice your well-being to mess up someone else’s day or life.

Revenge is trying to get payback on someone that did something to you that really bothered you. The thing is that when people are seeking revenge, their emotions get the best of them and they end up doing something they regret. Price talks about how, “revenge comes at a price,” and how it can, “leave you dwelling on the situation” (3). Even though when finally getting revenge at first it feels right, most of the time people end up regretting what they did.

In The Scarlet Letter, Dimmesdale’s internal struggle is a form of self-inflicted revenge, as he punishes himself for his inability to confess his sins.

Someone that is good at controlling their emotions might be able to get away with getting revenge. But, most people struggle with controlling their emotions. A social psychologist at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y. named Kevin Carlsmith did an experiment on how well people who want to seek revenge. At the end of the experiment, he found out that, “people…are bad at predicting their emotional states following revenge,” just showing how even a normal person can’t control their emotions when seeking revenge.

In The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth is seeking revenge on the father of Pearl, but while talking to Hester about what he wants, he is freaking out Hester with how he is talking and how his body language was.

Seeking revenge was one of the main parts of the book The Scarlet Letter. It was affecting many characters in the novel, leaving them in a terrible emotional state, or their emotional state bringing fear to others. There was also social revenge because everyone wanted revenge on Hester for her sin. But later on in the book, The Puritan community is quick to judge and condemn her. This exposes the hypocrisy of their moral standards, and how they end up changing even after seeking revenge.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864. The Scarlet Letter. New York, N.Y., U.S.A. :Signet Classic, 1988.

Price, Michael. “Revenge and the people who seek it” AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, Monitor, June 2009, www.apa.org/monitor/2009/06/revenge, 11 October 2023.