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Stifles his creativity and imagination
- His job at the Custom House stifles his creativity and imagination. The scarlet letter touches his soul (he actually feels heat radiate from it), and while "the reader may smile," Hawthorne feels a tugging that haunts him like his ancestors.
www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/the-scarlet-letter/summary-and-analysis/the-customhouse
Although this narrator seems to have much in common with Nathaniel Hawthorne himself—Hawthorne also worked as a customs officer, lost his job due to political changes, and had Puritan ancestors whose legacy he considered both a blessing and a curse—it is important not to conflate the two storytellers.
- Test Your Knowledge Take The The Custom-House: Introductory Quick Quiz
Nathaniel Hawthorne. Study Guide. Study Guide; No Fear...
- Chapters 23–24
Summary: Chapter 23: The Revelation of the Scarlet Letter....
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Infographic - The Scarlet Letter The Custom-House:...
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Flashcards - The Scarlet Letter The Custom-House:...
- Themes
Hawthorne explores the theme of female independence by...
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Mastery Quizzes - The Scarlet Letter The Custom-House:...
- Suggestions for Further Reading
A suggested list of literary criticism on Nathaniel...
- Full Book Summary
The Scarlet Letter opens with a long preamble about how the...
- Test Your Knowledge Take The The Custom-House: Introductory Quick Quiz
His job at the Custom House stifles his creativity and imagination. The scarlet letter touches his soul (he actually feels heat radiate from it), and while "the reader may smile," Hawthorne feels a tugging that haunts him like his ancestors.
Analysis. A nameless narrator (who has a similar biography to Hawthorne) describes his job as chief executive officer of a Custom House, the place where taxes were paid on imported goods.
When discussing his ancestors, Hawthorne is both reverent and mocking, jokingly wondering how an idler such as himself could have born from such noble lineage. Much of the story then deals with long descriptions of the various men with whom he worked in the Custom House.
Writing in the first person, Hawthorne explains that he lost his job at the Salem Custom-House, where taxes on imports and exports are processed, when a new political party took office. He then describes his hard-hearted Puritan ancestors and how they would have thought that his work as a writer was unsuitable.
The narrator fears that remaining in his job at the Custom House for any length of time would affect his long-term cognitive well-being negatively. In the introduction, we learn that...
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Hawthorne had many ill feelings about the Puritan past because of his great-grandfather's involvement as a judge during the Salem witch trials, and the emptiness of his own position in...
