The Scarlet Letter is a romantic novel set in 17th-century Puritan Boston. It is the story of Hester Prynne, an adulteress who struggles to create a new life of dignity and repentance. She is forced to wear a red "A" on her chest as a sign of her sinful act. The Scarlet Letter is considered one of the fundamental - if not the greatest - works of American literature. For all of its distinction however, the Scarlet Letter is a novel - as far as action goes - in which next to nothing happens. The narrative involves Pryne's attempt to resolve the torment caused by her affair with the minister Arthur Dimmesdale, in the years following the episode, but the affair itself is not in the novel, and is only alluded to.

Hawthorne forewarns us of how the rituals of society will plague the lives of the minister, Hester Prynne, and her daughter. In doing so Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter captures the most taboo elements in the society in the simple tale of woman trying to escape her past.