Hawthorne shows us in this novel just how the ideals of individualism and community can clash, particularly when “romantic” relationships are involved. He also shows another (and darker) side of the “romantic poet,” who becomes a kind of voyeur of other people’s lives, appropriating them for his own artistic purposes (and not quite in the manner Whitman had imagined!)
I’d like you to look at particular issues in this novel:

 gaps in the work (places where you have to provide an explanation or interpretation)
 the imagery (fire-ice, flowers, veils & masks, playacting, dreams)
 problems with the unreliable narrator
 what the work says about the difficulties of living in community
 the role of the writer (Miles) in society.

You might also consider questions like:

What does Miles really think about himself and the other people
Why does Zenobia drown herself
Why does the experiment fail?