As I was reading through not only chapters 16- 19, but also all chapters prior, the motif of crime and punishment are very evident. This particular theme drives me to consider the ways in which the Puritan society chose to deal with crime. In the case of a religion driven authority, it is apparent that the holy text in question, the bible, is the primary governing body of the town and likewise, all laws are defined by God, or those who claim to have connection to him. Thus, Reverend Dimmesdale is in a tough situation in his corrupted and polluted state mentioned in chapter 17. If the governing body of the town itself has participated in unclean and criminal activities, surely the town itself isn’t run properly. In order to create a society with an almighty yet tangent being to govern, it is widely accepted that an infallible being must govern. I have proposed a fictional universe from a television show “Psycho-Pass” with apparent flaws that would “fix” this issue.
The fictional universe were a supercomputer called the Sibyl System actively measures the mental state and personalities of the populace using a brain scan. The resulting assessment is called a Psycho-pass. When the probability of a person engaging in crimes passes beyond a certain threshold, they are apprehended and executed, if necessary by the law enforcement.
In the aforementioned universe, any person is susceptible to discharge, regardless of criminal intent or emotional stability. Thus, people possessing the ability to commit crime yet are capable of suppressing it still fall out of favor of the governing body, a computer. Crime is judged on a scale mirroring Dimmesdale’s insistence that Chillingworth falls farther out of the favor of God than he, one of the signs of his wavering faith. One must also keep in mind that the governing computer defines humans based on a set of numbers. Obviously the computer fails to express emotion. Although the puritan God was wrathful and angry, human beings were still defined as living creation and not a set of values. When considering the worth of a human life, true justice is not a science.
The proper situation to explore is the capacity for man to live in these societies without stress. Since those who think of actions that might cause stress to others are quickly punished by the Church or the fictional law enforcement, the concept of punishing someone because they have the potential to do something considered wrong is explored. When the value of human life and the sanctity of the state is defined by absolutes, no “oracle” for the future can be one hundred percent flawless. The puritans believed in a world where man and woman live lives without a choice for where their afterlives lead. They live in fear of an angry, wrathful God above, all because the idea of propitiation does not exist. In the first episode of Psycho-Pass, a woman is assaulted and the subsequent trauma raises her Psycho-pass. The police proceed to prepare to kill her because of this uncontrollable change. The concept of fear is demonstrated by both pieces to the feeling of being out of place. Thus, everybody is born into a world where living for themselves meant living for others. Similarly, whether or not Hester should be branded for eternity or Dimmesdale to live a life of fiery torment by his own conscience - his own God, or the citizens under the Sibyl System to exist to appease a creation of man himself all play into the hand of Fear, whether it be the fear of death or whatever lies beyond.
Chapters 16-19 also explores the theme of emotional repression. Hester and Dimmesdale both repress emotions whether it be the love for each other, or their own falls from faith, they are unable to express these feelings and thoughts freely. Freud once stated that dreams are the unconscious desires brought on by human instinct, but suppressed by the cultural and societal restraints. Latent criminals in Psycho-pass are also identified as those possessing emotions society deems negatives such as sadness or anger. Thus, the best way to avoid being branded a criminal is to hide these emotions inside, allowing them to fester. These two incidents create a Catch-22 type conundrum. A person in the puritan society or under the Sibyl system who possesses negative emotion cannot express these emotions freely in order to avoid either God’s wrath or an unstable psycho-pass coefficient. However, to repress these emotions is essentially an invitation for these emotions to take over the person’s subconscious. These conditions make for an impossibility to be declared societally “fit”. Furthermore, the constant pursuit for acceptance is presented by Psycho-Pass as a future where mental beauty is desired as much and possibly more so than physical beauty. The Scarlet Letter presents us with a past where approval from God can be equated to the approval of man, and anyone who falls out of the favor of God cannot live soundly in the world of man.
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