Arthur's seduction of an innocent, young country girl results in remorse, suffering, and regret. According to The Oxford Companion to English Literature, "the plot is founded on a story told to George Eliot by her aunt Elizabeth Evans, a Methodist preacher, and the original of Dinah Morris of the novel, of a confession of child-murder, made to her by a girl in prison." The story's plot follows four characters' rural lives in the fictional community...

"Hester Prynne is an adulteress, and the bright red 'A' sewed on to her dress forever separates her from the other sad-colored inhabitants of her New England hometown. But no one else knows who the father of Hester's pixie-like child is-and that sordid mystery eats at the townspeople. Months stretch into years for the uncomplaining and dignified Hester, providing some of her begrudging neighbors with ample opportunity for prying, hypocrisy, contempt,...