"The Ministers Black Veil" And "The Scarlet Letter": Judgmentalality

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or omen. The first is of course the letter, it meant evil,
shame, and sin to the townspeople. All it was, was a letter nothing more,
nothing less. The second object that people took as a prolific sign was
the weeds on a grave. They reasoned that the weeds were there because of
the sins of that person, and that the weeds grew because flowers could not.
People then and now take symbols too deeply and meaningful.

People often take events to be meaningful and supernatural. In The
Scarlet Letter the meteor meant some great act of God or the Devil was
about to take place. All a meteor is, is a chunk of rock of that is being
incinerated in our atmosphere. As a second example, when a person was up
on the scaffold it meant that they deserved scorn and ridicule and no
mercy. The scaffold meant you had shame and guilt and it was for all the
others to see.

In those times people were taken to mean things as well. Hester was
good hearted and almost clean but was seen as a ...

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