The novel takes place in 17th-century Boston, Massachusetts during the summer, in a then Puritan village. A young woman name Hester Prynne, is led from the town prison with her infant daughter Pearl in her arms and on the breast of her gown "a rag of scarlet cloth" that "assumed the shape of a letter. It was the Upper Case Letter "A". The scarlet letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she has committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin – a badge of shame – for all to see. A man in the crowd tells an elderly onlooker that Hester is being punished for adultery. Hester's husband, who is much older than she is, sent her ahead to America while he settled some affairs in Europe. However, her husband never arrived in Boston. The consensus is that he has been lost at sea. While waiting for her husband, Hester has apparently had an affair, as she has given birth to a child. She will not reveal her lover’ s identity, however, and the scarlet letter, along with her public shaming, is her punishment for her sin and her secrecy. On this day Hester is led to the town scaffold and harangued by the town fathers, but she again refuses to identify her child’ s father.[1].