Condemned to wear a bright red "A" over her breast wherever she went, Hester Prynne had been convicted of adultery by Boston's Puritan leaders; a child had been born to her during her husband's long absence. Emerging from the prisonhouse under the gaze of her neighbors, Hester surprised the townsfolk with her air of aloof and silent dignity Led to the town square, she ascended a scaffold, her babe cradled in her arms. There on …showed first 75 words of 1625 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1625 total…community as it is an insight to be attained through continuous exertion on the part of the individual conscience." An ambiguous blend of sin and virtue, pride and humility, severity and gentleness, justice and mercy, the novel's true message may lie in what Hawthorne describes as its true genre: The Scarlet Letter, says its author, is not so much a novel as a romance," filled with details that disclose the "truth of the human heart."