Please read carefully and complete
Answer these 2 questions separately. They are just for a discussion so be brief and keep it light.
1. Writers like Bradford engaged Hawthorne’s deepest interest. What evidence do you find in the “Custom House Sketch” of that interest? What in the Puritans’ lives and worldview engaged Hawthorne’s attention most deeply? How does he deal with these issues? How does The Scarlet Letter reflect the changing nature of Puritanism in America?
2. In “The Custom-House Sketch,” Hawthorne’s narrator describes neutral territory. Hawthorne says that it is where the real and the imaginary meet. How might one think of the forest operating as neutral territory? What passages support this theory? For what purpose is the notion of neutral territory reinvoked in the text?
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Custom House Sketch
One of the primary sources of evidence of Hawthorne’s interests in Custom House Sketch lies in the setting presented and personalities included in the story. In particular, the setting based on Salem and the differences in periods and qualities
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