Nature in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birth-Mark and Wilfred Owens" Disabled

1431 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The role of nature in modern literature

Freedom is an entity that people desire to have in life. Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Birth-Mark and Wilfred Owens in Disabled both have similar plots about two peoples concern for nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne The Birth-Mark focuses on the importance of nature. In the story “The Birth-Mark,” nature is said to be the most compelling thing man has made. The main character Aylmer, a scientist, is obsessed with perfection and nature. Aylmer is trying to live a life of fantasy because of his desire for perfection. In addition, Aylmer marries a woman by the name of Georgiana. Georgiana is a high- spirited woman who has one imperfection, the red birth-mark on her left cheek. Aylmer desires to have a perfect wife. Aylmer believes he can fix his wife’s birth-mark to create perfection. When in actuality, Aylmer is going to be left in sorrow. Aylmer thinks that his wife’s birth-mark is interfering with nature. The poem Disabled has a similar plot. The value of nature is an important theme is Wilfred poem disabled. The narrator is a disabled veteran whose legs were amputated because of the war. The narrator describes his agony about the war. The soldier is suffering from discomfort, depression, and disappointment. He describes his mental and physical disability. Moreover, he talks about his girlfriend Meg. The poem Disabled expresses the value of nature referencing the war. The story teller believes that war interrupts nature. In life, a person theoretically lives a long life then dies. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Wilfred Owens both believe man interrupt nature. Wilfred Owen and Nathaniel Hawthorne both have comparing and contrasting themes despite their different times in publication of their writings. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Wilfred Owens show the...

... middle of paper ...

...mark instead of embracing the birth-mark that was given to her. Nathaniel Hawthorne reveals that desire for perfection is a dreadful objective. The Wilfred Owen reveals to his audience that if a person shows the reality, then let the person decide for how he or she wants to deal with things accordingly. The last lesson is never to live a life wanting to please others. Both the soldier and Georgiana wanted to please their lovers. Unfortunately, they end up hurting themselves. Georgiana’s death reveals that a person should never try putting his life in jeopardy. Georgiana and the soldier should not let people coerce them into doing a something they love. It is hard to depict what Aylmer sadness is after his wife dies. Aylmer possibly realizes that he took his wife for granted. The soldier realizes that trying to please another person ends up making life worse.

Show More
Related

  • Rhetorical Devices In The Birthmark

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the short story, “The Birthmark” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the characters, foreshadowing, symbolism, and other rhetorical devices to alert people of the consequences of man having the power to control and alter nature. Additionally, through his skillful usage of diction, Hawthorne warns of the effects of seeking perfection through science. In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer, a man devoted entirely to science, marries Georgiana, a beautiful young woman with a single imperfection. Georgiana’s imperfection bears the resemblance of a tiny crimson hand and is visible on her left cheek. The birthmark 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.” He succeeds in removing the birthmark; however, he unfortunately causes his wife’s death in the process. Through “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne suggests that nothing paradisiacal can exist on this earth, and that being imperfect is just part of being human.

    Read More

  • Perfection In Hawthorne's The Birth Mark

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    The words “beautiful” and “perfect” are both vague yet relative concepts as they are defined from person to person. In Hawthorne’s “The Birth Mark,” imperfections perceived by one are also seen as defining in beauty by another. Perfection, as sought by Aylmer, became an obsession which in the end required Georgiana to undergo a process of transmutation to become perfect and therefore a more desirable human being in Aylmer’s eyes. The concept of “bodily perfection” remains the same today as it was in Hawthorne’s time: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it is who the beholder is that is of greatest importance when determining the value of the opinion being shared. For Georgiana, Aylmer’s happiness, or lack thereof, defined the way in

    Read More

  • Unko

    853 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poem “Jamie” by Elizabeth Brewster, Brewster conveys the feeling of being isolated from the rest of society. By becoming deaf, people experienced bitterness, loneliness and anger, and eventually became a social outcast who is as unloquacious as a stone. But if we have desire and passion for our life, even we have disability; we would have a better life. Through the poem “Jamie”, the author also illustrates the importance of having desire for our life.

    Read More

  • The Symbolic Use of Nature in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter

    1364 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Symbolic Use of Nature in The Scarlet Letter In Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic The Scarlet Letter, nature plays a very important and symbolic role. Hawthorne uses nature to convey the mood of a scene, to describe characters, and to link the natural elements with human nature. Many of the passages that have to do with nature accomplish more than one of these ideas. All throughout the book, nature is incorporated into the story line.

    Read More

  • Human Imperfection Illustrated in Hawthorne's The Birthmark

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ection. By removing the birthmark from Georgiana’s face, Aylmer has taken away her humanity thus leading Georgiana to her death. Georgiana cannot live anymore because she is no longer a human being. Therefore claiming that science has its limits over nature and if those limits are crossed the consequences could be fatal.

    Read More

  • How Wilfred Owen Uses Language and Imagery in His Poetry to Communicate his Attitudes of War

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    How Wilfred Owen Uses Language and Imagery in His Poetry to Communicate his Attitudes of War

    Read More

  • The Representation of Tone in the Novel of the Turn of the Screw

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... is reminiscing about the fact that she messed up and it cost the boy’s life. The overall tone in the end of the novel is depressing as the governess’s actions and attitudes about current events tend to reflect the tone of the situation.

    Read More

  • Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark: Understanding The Birthmark

    846 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story’s tone is one of romantic controversy, a dilemma at a high level of existence.  The scientist’s love for his craft competes very intensively with his newfound love for his wife.  It is also very psychological, strictly dealing with the raw mind of its subjects as if the ominous narrator told the story from inside their mind, rather than observe it from the outside.  He describes the processes that one may take to reach a certain degree of knowledge and to find the elixir of life, which is described in this story as the ultimate goal of the scientific community.  Also, the narrator is very opinionated about events in the story.

    Read More

  • Comparision of "The Soldier" and "Dulce et Decorum Est"

    1577 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Compare and contrast “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke with “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen with regard to theme, tone, imagery, diction, metre, etc”

    Read More

  • Wilfred Owen Conflict Analysis

    1305 Words  | 3 Pages

    Human conflict is a violent confrontation between groups of people due to differences in values and beliefs. During World War I, poet and soldier, Wilfred Owen, faced the harsh realities of human conflict, dying at a young age of 25, only six days before the war ended. Owen’s personal encounters during war had a profound influence on his life as reflected in the poems and letters he wrote before his passing. In using a variety of poetic devices to write about the suffering and brutality of war, vividly captured in his poems ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ and ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, Owen effectively conveys his own perspective about human conflict. ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ depicts the horrific scenes on the battlefield and a grotesque death from drowning

    Read More

  • The Ambiguity of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

    3228 Words  | 7 Pages

    There are numerous instances of ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”; this essay hopes to explore critics’ comments on that problem within the tale, as well as to analyze it from this reader’s standpoint.

    Read More

  • The Birthmark Literary Criticism

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    The tone adopted by Hawthorne from the inception of the narrative toward Aylmer urges the reader to respect Aylmer’s scientific ambition—directly his triumph of head over heart, but indirectly his objectification of Georgiana and subsequent attempts to fix something that she never thought was a flaw. Not only is Aylmer’s obsession with getting rid of her birthmark selfish in that he does it for “the sake of giving himself peace” (647) rather than any desire to make his wife happy, he also admits to feeling guilt over his tyrannical treatment of her. For example, his “horror and disgust” in response to her facial blight rarely escapes her notice, and when she reacts poorly to his “convulsive shudder,” he attempts to soothe her and “release her mind from the burden of actual things” (650) as if she is an empty-headed infant in need of a pacifier. Furthermore, in response to her desperate request for its removal, he isolates her from humanity, administers potentially harmful concoctions into her rooms and body without her knowledge, and ultimately—and rapturously—succeeds in shrinking the mark at the cost of her

    Read More

  • Unattainable Beauty in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    In today’s society, it seems that we cannot turn the television on or look in a

    Read More

  • Wilfred Owen's Ability to Draw in the Audience in His Poems, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and Anthem for Doomed Youth

    796 Words  | 2 Pages

    To draw into the poet’s world, the poet must draw relations between them, including the reader, making them feel what the poet feels, thinking what the poet thinks. Wilfred Owen does this very creatively and very effectively, in both of his poems, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori and Anthem of Doomed Youth, who is seen as an idol to many people today, as a great war poet, who expresses his ideas that makes the reader feel involved in the moment, feeling everything that he does. His poems describe the horror of war, and the consequences of it, which is not beneficial for either side. He feels sorrow and anger towards the war and its victims, making the reader also feel the same.

    Read More

  • how does wilfred owen portray sympathy for the soldiers in disabled.

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    The structure in ‘Disabled’ moves from past to present, then back to past. In the first stanza (which is present) Owen emphasizes the soldiers isolation, ‘’sat in a wheeled chair’’, this shows the aftermath of the war (the loss of the soldiers limbs); this makes the reader fell pity for the soldier. Also in the first stanza the imagery and language is dark. Owen makes the reader empathize with the soldier by using the term ‘’shivered’’ which means to shake slightly and uncontrollably as a result of being cold or frightened. In this case the soldier was cold and frightened due to the traumatizing events of war. This also emphasizes shock; it shows how the soldier is mentally scarred due to the war. This contrasts with the second stanza which begins with colourful imagery, ‘’glow lamps…light blue trees’’, this illustrates the good spirits of the town before the war. The contrast compares his life before and after the war, emphasizing the impact war had on soldiers. The structure highlights memory, emotion and sadness.

    Read More

More about Nature in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birth-Mark and Wilfred Owens" Disabled

Open Document