Miller: … And you alone know how unequal the battle has always been that your will has had to fight.
Hester: ‘I tried to be good, and failed.’ Isn’t that the excuse all criminals make?
Miller: When they make it justly, it’s a just excuse.
Hester: Does it let them escape their sentence?
Miller: Yes, if the judge is fair — and not blind with hatred for the criminal — as you are for yourself.
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6 comments
Michael Cooper says:
Oct 30, 2009
Isn't this just saying, "God forgives because I tried to do the best I could"? I hope this is not the case, because 9 times out of 10 I don't even TRY to do "the best I can." But, thankfully, the Judge in His mercy is not fair. Love is never fair.
Robin Anderson says:
Oct 30, 2009
"I tried to be good, and failed", sounds like a word of repentence to me, yet this woman, and I,and who knows how many others of us, seem to think our repentence isn't enough, we don't want to be just another criminal. The fairness of the judge in this story is like the mercy of the father in the prodigal son, it cuts through the pride of self hatred.
paul says:
Oct 30, 2009
Eureka
Michael Cooper says:
Oct 30, 2009
I don't think that the prodigal son was "trying to be good" when he was at the disco, but the father showed him mercy anyway. The son says that he no longer deserves to be called a son; he does not say that he had "tried to be good" but failed and hopes that the father will be "fair" to him as a result. It is the son's realization that he had NOT tried to do anything but fulfill his own selfish desires, and his faith that the father loved him anyway, that caused him to return. To me anyway, that is the essence of repentance.
Robin Anderson says:
Oct 30, 2009
I see what you mean, Michael, the prodigal wasn't trying to be good as in to be pleasing to God, let alone his family. But I am hearing "trying to be good" as "trying to do it myself". The key word is _trying_, when what is needed is giving up on my own efforts altogether. It's that thing that continues to dog me, "I don't want to be forgiven, I want to have not messed up in the first place", all pride.
I thought of the prodigal because he called himself no longer worthy to be called a son, he saw sonship as something to be earned, knew he'd failed, and expected the same hatred from the father as he now had for himself. In the scene we're discussing, the woman hates herself for failing, but the judge does not hate her at all. You are right, fair may not be the perfect word, mercy is more accurate, yet there is something about hearing that a fair judge loves me that gives ineffable comfort.
Michael Cooper says:
Oct 30, 2009
Robin–I see where you are coming from. If "I tried and failed" here means "in my pride I thought that I could do it and I now realize I can't" then bravo for this scene. However, I understood that in this short dialogue, "Hester" is being told that because the judge is fair, he will cut you some slack because you have really tried to be good. I understood the quoted section this way because "Miller" says that "I tried" let's one escape one's sentence "if it's a just excuse." In that case, she would only be seeking "fairness", not mercy. "Fairness" would dictate "escape" for those who have "tried". This is how I understood this quoted section, but maybe in context it has an entirely different meaning.