![]() The Custom House serves the small ship traffic going through the port, but it is usually a quiet place requiring only minimal work. The streets and buildings are dilapidated, the townspeople are very sober and old, and grass grows between the cobblestones. ![]() Salem is a port city that failed to mature into a major harbor. Hawthorne tells the reader that he could not bring himself to fire any of them, so after he assumed leadership, things stayed the same. He describes his staff as a bunch of tottering old men who rarely rise out of their chairs and who spend each day sleeping or talking softly to one another. His analysis of the place is harsh and critical. ![]() Hawthorne (as narrator) was granted the position of chief executive officer of the Custom House through the president's commission. It also serves as an excellent essay on society during Hawthorne's times, and it allows Hawthorne to add an imaginative literary device, the romantic pretense of having discovered the manuscript of The Scarlet Letter in the Custom House. It was written to enlarge the tale of The Scarlet Letter, since Hawthorne deemed the story too short to print by itself. The Custom House is largely an autobiographical sketch describing Hawthorne's life as an administrator of the Salem Custom House.
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