Nathaniel Hawthorne Custom House Analysis

In the selected passage from the “Custom House,” Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes an extended metaphor and imagery to convey his agitated attitude toward the US Federal Government. The extended metaphor compares the US Federal Government to an eagle, the national bird of the US, to emphasize its power. Hawthorne describes the eagle as strong, protective, containing “fierceness of her beak and eye,” and carrying “ a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw” to create a visual the government as dominant.

In the selected passage from the “ Custom House,” Hawthorne employs the rhetorical strategies imagery and negative connotation to illustrate how the Custom House is viewed. Hawthorne states that the Custom House “ has