When analyzing both “The Birthmark” and Eye of the Beholder, several literary devices can be found to explain each text’s theme. Within “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne uses imagery and symbolism in order to portray the effect that Georgiana’s birthmark has on her marriage and ultimately her life. In the episode of the Twilight Zone, Eye of the Beholder, the producers use irony and foreshadowing in order to draw attention to the oddity that is a society where the life of one person who is not considered beautiful could be drastically changed due to such an exile from society.
The Birthmark - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hawthorne uses imagery in order to depict both the birthmark that “blemishes” the skin on Georgiana’s cheek, and the hospital-esque area
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Similarly, the birth mark itself represents Georgiana’s humanity and the presence (or lack) of flaws with her personality and her physical beauty. Therefore, when Aylmer attempts to rid her of her birthmark - her only flaw - he is trying to make her perfect. And it is through the symbolism of the birthmark that Hawthorne works to show that.
“Selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay and death..wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped..” pg 220
Through the use of an allegory, Hawthorne portrays how important it is to uphold beauty not as it is in the eye of the beholder, but in the eye of the individual in
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Then, when the shadows lift we see the twisted faces and gnarled skin of the doctors and nurses who had been treating her.
Throughout the episode, the foreshadowing used by the producers in the episode affects how we predict the outcome. The manner in which they set the camera away from the faces and features of the characters allowed us to only see their outlines in the shadows. All the attention was on Janet Tyler, who’s wrapped face was front and center in the light. With the attention to Janet’s condition and the importance of a change in her unwrapped face we are led to believe that her face will remain unchanged.
As Janet’s gauze wrapped face was in focus, the other people were in the shadows.
Similarly to “The Birthmark”, the producers of the twilight zone use an allegory throughout this episode in order to show the viewer the importance of understanding beauty as it applies to each individual.
When Janet Tyler met the man who was to take her back to the “gathering” of the people who were “like her”
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
On the surface, a beautiful, poisonous girl and a preacher shadowed by a black veil share no similar characteristics. However, in the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, these characters share two remarkably comparable stories. The Minister’s Black Veil and Rappaccini's Daughter both share the symbolic use of colors, yet the characters’ relation to the outside world deviates. Hawthorne expertly contrasts colors to illustrate the battle of good against evil. In The Minister’s Black Veil, Mr. Hooper’s black veil contrasts sharply against the pale-faced congregation, just as Beatrice’s likeness to the purple flowers, described as being able to, “...illuminate the garden,” contrasts the darkness of Dr Rappaccini’s black clothing. These clashes of colors
The first and most evident symbol is the faces of the people. Georgiana has the birthmark if the shape of a hand, and the black veil that Hooper wore. I think that Hawthorne chooses to focus on the peoples faces because a person"'"s face is pretty much the center of their being. The face is where a person shows the majority of their emotions, and it holds the brain, which well, is where everything starts at. So, a person"'"s face is very important.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.”The Birth-Mark.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 340-351. Print.
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
In any novel worth reading there is use of basic rhetorical devices like symbolism, allusions, etc. Nathaniel Hawthorne viewed strongly abroad as excellent author for many reasons but none as prevalent as his use of symbolism. Hawthorne uses repetition, motifs and symbolism to poetically approximate allusions almost within every word of his book “The Scarlet Letter”. Symbolism is the adhesive in “The Scarlet Letter”, other than maintaining the reader’s interest, it also makes allusions to other famous works such as the bible, and he uses it to transition the exposition throughout the book. A white man standing next to an Indian was wearing “… clad in a strange disarray of civilized and savage costume” (45) symbolizing the linimal position of the character in the story and in life. Although this symbol has one clear layer it also has a bi-layer to represent a different meaning. The matter that Hawthorne forms epic amounts of symbol s would have formed a problem if he hadn’t made it easy to depict the differences between his concrete symbols and his abstract symbols through repetit...
	During Janet’s young years she was forced to deal with difficult conditions at home. She recalls in an interview with Steve Pond in the December 1997 issue of ‘US magazine, "My father whipped me one time when I was a kid. But there was no rape or crap like that. You can begin to see how you feel less-than, not worthy, fraudulent. And that’s how I grew up feeling."(2) Despite problems with other family members Janet was always close with her mother. She said in the same interview with Steve Pond, "Mother always could feel when I wasn’t doing well, and she was incredible supportive." In Janet’s
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, is the story of a crazed scientist whose strive for perfection not only leads to the death of his beautiful wife, but the attempt of man to have power over nature. It follows the story of Aylmer and his obsession with removing the birthmark off his beautiful wife, Georgiana. “His unnatural fixation to his wife’s birthmark even consumes him in his sleep as he dreams of cutting it off much like scraping an apple off its skin.” (Snodgrass 29). This narrative explores the themes of perfection, and the conflict between science and the natural world.
For example, in the beginning of the story, Young Goodman Brown is leaving his wife Faith at sunset to go on a journey that cannot wait. The images of a sunset and of the approaching nighttime illustrate the fear of the unknown. Goodman Brown must travel through the darkness before he reaches the light of knowledge just as the prisoners in Allegory of the Cave must travel from the dark cave in order to reach the light. As the story continues, Hawthorne uses the image of a “dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest” to heighten the fear of the unknown. Goodman Brown has left the comfort of the cave of confusion and is beginning to discover the imperfections of the world and of its people.
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.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “The Birthmark” was on the darker side of the Romantic Movement, but it was still a love story. There was a love of science and obsessing over beauty and perfection. Aylmer love Georgiana and she loved him. She was willing to die for him, and he was willing to experiment on her, even if meant losing her. Hawthorne put himself into his work, expressing fears, and emotions that was hard to put into words. His surroundings impacted the outcome of his
Fabricating a type of the romantic artist who has radically creative powers that he exercises, Hawthorne creates in “The Birth-Mark” an extreme situation that bares the fundamentalism of the transcendental aesthetic. Accepting the premise that the artistry of nature, regardless of the apparent coarseness and lack of finish that some products may exhibit, is superior to the artistry of humanity because nature "works from the innermost germ," Hawthorne was initially critical of any discontent with the quantity and quality of nature's bounty. Should the reader emphasize Aylmer's Neoplatonism and his quest for ideal beauty, the disjunction between drama and assertion assumes a thematic function: it is Hawthorne's means to test the values of the ideal artist. Hawthorne even more
Analysis of The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written in the mid-1800s, its themes and ideas are still a part of society today. The 19th century was a time of change, just like this, the millennium, was a time of great change. Hawthorne’s ideas about science, beauty, and life still play a major part in our lives, despite many improvements.
Mock was just a confused girl trapped in a world that didn’t understand. Janet shows us that even in those times of confusion and stress, we can always find ourselves and be truly happy. Mock demonstrates that at a young age that she understood what it means to be a woman in the workforce. She tells about a time in school where she was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.
Nathaniel Hawthorne did not do much explaining when it came to the characters involved in "The Birthmark". He did not portray the main characters: Aylmer, Georgiana, and Ambidab as human beings, but rather as symbols. While analyzing the story "The Birthmark", I have achieved some great insight of the author 's articulate writing style; especially, his style of making characters have symbolic meaning. In this story, Hawthorne uses his characters to symbolize specific things. In this ambiguous, short story, the three characters each symbolize Science, Beauty, and Nature. Each character represents an unusual force that has equally worked against each other.