."..An author, methinks, may be autobiographical, without violating either the reader's rights or his own."(Hawthorne 2). These may be the words of the Narrator in the Custom House of The Scarlet Letter, but he definitely pushes his limits by talking of his fellow officers that work at the Custom House. He thinks that they are all lazy very relaxed. The narrator is very cynical and sarcastic and he describes some of these men, such as the Surveyor, General Miller, Whig Collectors, the Inspector, and the Officers.

The narrator starts out by criticizing the general officers of the Custom House. He emphasizes that these men are all very old in age, and that they have repetitious conversations about their experiences at sea and tell old jokes. They sit leaning against the wall, their chairs tipped back, staring straight ahead of them as they speak to one another, and are...