“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”

Here’s the most oft-quoted line picked out from the book The Scarlet Letter (1850) written by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Set in 17th-century puritanical Massachusetts, Hawthorne’s classic moral study tells the story of Hester Prynne, a woman who gives birth to a daughter out of wedlock, and finds herself an outcast in a condemning society. As Hester struggles to create a new life of dignity, she’s forced to wear the scarlet “A” on her chest, standing for “Adultress” – at first a symbol of her shame and sin and afterwards a symbol of her triumph.