Set in Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony from 1642 to 1649, the novel opens at a prison door where a crowd gathers to witness the punishment of Hester Prynne, a young woman who has given birth to a baby out of wedlock. Her sentence requires her to stand on the scaffold of a former gallows for three hours, exposed to public humiliation, and to wear a scarlet "A" for the rest of her life. When commanded to confess and name the father of her child, Hester refuses. Over the years, Hester struggles with isolation as she struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity as an adulterer.