Having a passion that is relentless in life is important. It can manifest the temporary emotion of joy, but can cause another eternal misery. Edgar Allen Poe sets a gothic mood in his short story “The Oval Portrait.” “The Oval Portrait” opens with the narrator occupying an abandoned chateau, and he finds an oval portrait of a young woman, that is very realistic. He is interested and begins to read her story. The woman in the story married an artist, who seemed as if he was in love with art itself more than her. She lets him paint a portrait of her, eventually sacrificing herself. On the other hand, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes a similar short story to Poe. In Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” the narrator introduces Aylmer, a brilliant scientist …show more content…
Poe describes the artist’s motions when painting the portrait. He is very detailed and specific of everything his wife has to offer art. He adds it to the painting, taking away her time without realizing, “But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day. And be was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him.” The painter was extremely passionate about art, and his wife realized that. She wanted to offer him a deal he could not turn down, to paint a portrait of her so she could reel his attention on her. He did not realize that she was dying as he painted on. She felt as if they were rivals, and in the end art itself reigned the win over her. Hawthorne’s Georgiana also shares the same outcome as the painter’s wife. Aylmer is done with potion experiment he has made for his wife to try. “Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work.” Georgiana has allowed Aylmer to make it for her to drink but as …show more content…
The wife of the painter feels as she is constantly a rival with art to receive love and attention from her husband. He is motivated to capture his wife’s beauty in the oval portrait. “It was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead.” The wife wants to make the painter happy by allowing him to capture her beauty in the portrait, but he is focused on the perfection of the portrait that it leads to the wrong fate. He did not want to hurt her, but he did without knowing so. The rival of art simply won over the wife because he was so passionate about art. Hawthorne’s male character, Aylmer is a scientist who is obsessed with the birthmark and the assumption that he will do anything to get rid of it is evident. His motivation throughout the story is to make Georgiana the epitome of perfection. “...he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceable on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain.” Aylmer in the
What seems to be a simple tale of human error at first, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark”, implies a much deeper and darker note upon closer inspection. A relatively short story, it details an event in the lives of Aylmer and Georgiana, a recent wedded couple. Georgiana possesses a birthmark on her cheek that repulses Aylmer more and more as time goes on. When he confronts her about it, she voices that it is a part of her charm, but Aylmer begins to react so violently around it that Georgiana finally agrees to give him a chance to remove it. He spends a few days in the laboratory with her and does remove the birthmark, but also removes her soul from the earth, she dies when the birthmark is gone. This story is wrought with details that support its label as a “dark romantic tale”. To see the story in the correct light, one has to understand what dark romanticism is. Dark romantic writers believed that humans are prone to sin. The human race is not always blessed with divinity and wisdom. Second, they represented evil in their stories with supernatural characters; ghost...
There is a thin line between love and hate. Love is having a strong affection for another person, place, or thing and sometimes, it makes people do crazy things. Whether it is a woman chopping off hair due to a bad breakup or placing permanent tattoos on the body for commitment, one will go to major extremities to satisfy their passion for love. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, “The Birthmark,¨ a psychotic scientist strives for perfection not only leading to the death of his beautiful wife, but overall attempting to have power and control over nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism and foreshadowing to display the thematic complexities of mortality and human imperfection that the birthmark personifies psychologically and symbolically in the
In the short story, “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Aylmer, a man devoted entirely to science, who marries Georgiana, a beautiful young woman with a single imperfection. Georgiana’s imperfection is merely a birthmark on her cheek that bears the resemblance of a tiny crimson hand. Still, this mark becomes the object of Aylmer’s obsession, and he resolves to use his scientific prowess to correct “what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work.” Aylmer succeeds in removing the birthmark; however, he unfortunately causes his wife’s death in the process. Through his skillful use of diction, foreshadowing, symbolism, irony, paradox, allusion, and antithesis, Hawthorne warns of the consequences of man having the desire and power to control and alter nature, and suggests that nothing paradisiacal can exist on this earth; that being imperfect is just part of being human.
The composition of this painting forces the eye to the woman, and specifically to her face. Although the white wedding dress is large and takes up most of the woman’s figure, the white contrasts with her face and dark hair, forcing the viewer to look more closely into the woman’s face. She smokes a cigarette and rests her chin on her hands. She does not appear to be a very young woman and her eyes are cast down and seem sad. In general, her face appears to show a sense of disillusionment with life and specifically with her own life. Although this is apparently her wedding day, she does not seem to be happy.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. Some of his most popular short stories include “The Birthmark,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.” “The Birthmark,” which was published in March of 1843, is a story about a beautiful girl named Georgiana who has a red birthmark on her cheek. She is described as flawless throughout the community, but the hand-shaped birthmark smears a sense of imperfection onto her otherwise perfect body. Throughout the story, her husband, Aylmer, attempts to remove the birthmark and control nature in the process. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is centered around a young student named Giovanni who arrives in Padua to study medicine. He soon
The use of third person omniscient tence gives the readers the ability to know Aylmer’s and Georgiana’s thoughts throughout the story. We can understand the tense of the narrator when he states, “Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana” (617). Many believe that Hawthorne is showing the readers that humans themselves are full of limitations that they are unaware of. The narrator of this story seems to have a lot of harsh opinions about the birthmark itself. Lynn Shakinovsky states her believe that, “Much critical attention has been focused on the mark; clearly the way in which the mark is "read" is fundamental to any interpretation of the story” (1). Thus when Georgiana dies the readers are unaware of Aylmer's emotions due to the narrator. At this point readers must really be dreading to have the ability to read Aylmer’s mind.
In the article, “The Question of Poe’s Narrators” James W. Gargano discusses the criticize in “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and tries to help the readers understand why Poe writes the way he does and identifies some of the quotes in his work. According, to Gargano, other authors view’s Poe’s work as “cheap or embarrassing Gothic Style” (177). The author is saying that Poe’s work makes the reader look at themselves not only the work. The author explores three main points. Some author thinks that Poe’s life is reflected in a lot of his work, uses dramatic language to show his style in work, and explains how Poe’s work manipulates his readers to understand.
After Georgina eventually passed, Aylmer was left to deal with what his obsession for perfection had brought upon his wife, who was thought to be the closest thing to perfection. Hawthorne uses many different literary devices throughout this story, with the most prevalent being his use of symbolism. of the book. Ed. Michael Meyer.
“The Birthmark” starts out with an explanation of how the main character, Aylmer, was “a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of philosophy”. He cleaned himself up, washing the furnace smoke and acid stains from his hands, left his lab with his assistant, and then seduced a young beautiful woman to marry
Edgar Allen Poe was an American Writer who wrote within the genre of horror and science fiction. He was famous for writing psychologically thrilling tales examining the depths of the human psyche. This is true of the Tell-Tale Heart, where Poe presents a character that appears to be mad because of his obsession to an old mans, ‘vulture eye’. Poe had a tragic life from a young age when his parents died. This is often reflected in his stories, showing characters with a mad state of mind, and in the Tell Tale Heart where the narrator plans and executes a murder.
The character of Aylmer can be seen as a sinister, mad scientist who constantly fights with nature in order to attain human perfection. From the beginning of the story Aylmer’s fight with nature can be seen. “We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weakened from them by any second passion” (Hawthorne 218). This shows Aylmer’s passion in trying to discover the secrets of nature and being able to master it. Aylmer’s obsession with perfection and defying nature can be seen again when he is discussing the mark on Georgiana’s cheek. “’No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection’” (Hawthorne 219). This shows Aylmer is not trying to remove the mark as an act of love, but instead trying to remove the mark because it symbolizes a stain of imperfection by nature. Aylmer is obsessed in his efforts to remove the mark and his motivations are not to make Ge...
“The Birthmark” is a short story written by author Nathaniel Hawthorne. This short story is filled with symbolism and destructive criticism. It follows the scientist Aylmer and his obsession of removing his wife Georgina’s birthmark. The crimson hand-shaped birthmark on the face of an otherwise perfect, beautiful woman contains deep meanings. Through the use of symbolism, Hawthorne demonstrates the issues and themes of the unattainability of perfection, science and nature, humanity’s flaws, and mortality.
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
Melancholy and beauty go hand in hand for Poe. If his goal is to bring about the "excitement of the soul," then that can only be achie...
Edgar Allen Poe was most notably recognized as an intellectual writer. Poe’s most famous works include “The Raven” as well as “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Poe had quite a few other pieces of literature that may not have been as prominent as the formerly mentioned works, but their Gothic moods and dark tones were certainly on par as a collective whole. This critical analysis will focus on just one of Poe’s literary works, “The Oval Portrait” and how the messages and themes presented within this work carry over into the modern society of today.