Essay Comparing Perfection In Tell-Tale Heart And The Birthmark

The Ultimate Perfectionist
Many authors in American literature tend to use common themes or outcomes in their writings that can or cannot pertain to real life experiences. Hopefully not many times in ones life does someone hear about a person being murdered solely because of his or her imperfections; however, this outcome seems to be very common in two of our famous writer’s short stories. In both Nathaniel Hawthorn’s “The Birthmark” and Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Tell Tale Heart,” both of the main characters develop such an unnecessary, obsessive hatred with someone’s imperfection that they go to ultimate measures to eliminate them forever. When comparing these two short stories, it is evident to see how both of these themes are concentrated around the idea that one physical imperfection can be a mark of moral shortcoming.

In Poe’s “The Tale-Tale Heart,” it is the innocent older man who bears the ridicule and eventual murder by a young man. For example, the young man states that he actually loves the old man; however, “He had the eye of a vulture-a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so, by degrees-very gradually-I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 691). Both Georgiana’s birthmark and the older man’s eye, two common flaws, possess the ability to create such an extreme reaction in another person. Likewise, and on the other end, both Aylmer and the young man let their hatred of their counterparts’ flaw overcome them so much that it eventually lead to the termination of all of the characters, either physically or