Symbolism In The Birthmark And The Tell-Tale Heart

A story contains much more than just the words presented on the page. There are deeper meanings, hidden facts and underlying messages. At the heart of this idea is symbolism. Symbolism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of giving a symbolic character to objects. In the short stories “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin symbolism is an essential component of the story. The beauty of symbolism is that items can represent much more than their literal meaning and it allows the reader to make connections between multiple texts. From these two stories the most prominent items that stand for something other than itself are the canary and the heart. It can be argued that both items symbolize love and freedom.

Georgiana can be viewed as the protagonist of the story. Georgiana in the story is depicted as this beautiful woman who her husband Aylmer only dislikes one of her qualities/features which is her birthmark. The birthmark is described to represent a red hand on her cheek. Initially when Aylmer asks her if she has ever thought about getting her birthmark removed she thinks of it as a joke and begins to blush. It is not until that she realizes that he was in fact serious that she becomes somewhat distraught with him for rejecting her as she is.

In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer is bothered in seeing a birthmark on his wife Georgiana’s cheek. I believe that Aylmer was truly evil in the way he manipulated Georgiana in thinking he truly cared about her. Aylmer’s ideas of perfection were the most dangerous thing about him and even led him to kill.

In “The Birthmark” Nathaniel Hawthorne gives us a story that is telling us on some level to accept your own, as well as other people's imperfections or it could destroy not only your relationship with them, but also your relationship with yourself. In this story Hawthorne uses symbolism to show us exactly how this kind of behavior can lead to not just ruining relationships, but in this case even death. In “The Birthmark” Hawthorne uses a wide variety of objects and people such as a withering flower, a birthmark, poison, Aylmer's dream and Georgiana's death, and even a character named Aminidab to symbolize that nobody is in fact perfect and we all must accept each others flaws in order to have good and healthy relationships.

The true essence of “The Birthmark” is infiltrated through the hidden structure of the strength of a woman. As we unpack the passion behind the obsession that Aylmer presents with his genius in science, on the surface, one may recognize his obscenity and categorize it as a reflection of masculine control. Though, this is in fact true, what strikes as an unbeknownst strength is the hidden sacrifice that Georgiana represents as she succumbs to her spouse and his desire to make her “perfect”. As Hawthorne structures this sacrifice as a mere testament of how women of the late 1700’s - 1800’s valued the perspective of their spouse, it is necessary to extract how this act of selflessness attributes to the amount of love and respect Georgiana has for

The short story “The Birthmark” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1834. The story follows a brilliant, yet insane scientist named Aylmer. He creates so many brilliant inventions in hoping to improve his life; his wife is just as perfect, despite a small hand shaped birthmark on her cheek. While Georgiana is considered gorgeous and beautiful by hundreds of men, only Aylmer sees the fault in the birthmark and deems it as a flaw that only he can fix with science. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism and figurative language to help convey the meaning of the short story to readers.

“The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a criticism of human’s focus on perfection and the damage it can cause. Georgiana has a birthmark on her cheek that many believe to be one of the many sources of her beauty. But her husband, Aylmer, believes it to be a hideous imperfection. Aylmer, a scientist, believes that he has the cure for something as damaging as a birthmark. After much persistence, he receives permission to attempt to remove Georgiana’s birthmark and has to deal with its inevitable consequences. Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” shows an obsession with perfection and the damage it can have on something as fragile as human life.

In Poe’s stories, a literary device he uses frequently throughout his stories, are symbols. For example, in the text “The The-Tale Heart”, Poe’s use of the old man’s eye symbolized the obsessions and fears of the narrator like, “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood

In the short stories “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the value of science over human life is established. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the characterization of beauty, emotion over love, versus intellect over science, and an exploration of creator over creation. He presents an idea about scientific research, especially regarding feminine beauty. These tales are told with a motive to give the audience a sympathetic understanding of women’s beauty; which is something precious and already the model of nature’s perfection.

The story has a lot of symbols. The symbols in a story may be important or not important. In this story all the symbols are important. Symbols mean something in this story. Also a symbol can mean something in real life. Could be a person or an object. In this story there were a lot of different symbols with different

The structure of a story can either make or break the book being written. The Birthmark and The Scarlet Letter, both by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are both effective in the ways they were written. The birthmark is a short story that teaches a life lesson. Hawthorne was effective in the way he structured this specific story since he didn’t dwell on history and small details. The Scarlet Letter was very effective and the structure played a huge role in that. Hawthorne deliberately focused on connections between the reader, characters and the narrator. By doing this he purposely made us feel certain ways about the characters in the book. Both of these texts came across as effective but they both accomplished it in their own way.

Where there are clashing loves, time proves again and again that whichever love is stronger blossoms and its unfortunate counterpart dissipates into the wind. Making room for a second love can be difficult, especially if the second love dares to threaten the prior. This very phenomenon strikes the scientist Aylmer in the short story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Aylmer’s burning passion has been the art of scientific studies. Aylmer shows no intentions of changing his scientific way of thinking for anyone, not even his newly beloved wife Georgiana. In this time period, it is extremely common for a women to have to compete with a man’s love for science. Unfortunately for Georgiana, it is evident that Aylmer’s primary cares are himself