Birthmark And The Eye Of The Beholder Essay

The Birthmark and The Eye of the Beholder are both texts that deal with man’s pursuit of perfection, and the many factors that form a conception of beauty in society. However, these texts use very different literary devices to make their points. While Hawthorne uses verisimilitude, paradox, and the antithesis between Aylmer’s view of the hand and society’s view to show that trying to create beauty and perfection out of nature will only end in disaster, Serling uses irony to create the round character of Janet Tyler to show that beauty and perfection are relative, and uses historical allusion to put the ideas of beauty being only a societal norm into context.

The Birthmark body paragraph

Hawthorne juxtaposed the meaning of the birthmark to Aylmer with its beauty for everyone else. Society saw the birthmark as the embodiment of beauty in Georgina, conversely, Aylmer only saw imperfection in his wife. Aylmer wanted to remove this symbol of death, but in trying to make Georgiana perfect and as beautiful as she could be, he ended up killing her, showing the

Through this, Serling examines how loving oneself is more important than trying to fit into the cultural norms. Comparatively, Hawthorne included nothing about this theme in his story. Instead, he created a character, Aylmer, whose flaw was trying to change a woman who was already beautiful by society’s standards. Hawthorne’s moral seems to be that people shouldn’t fight for perfection, they should adhere to the cultural standards instead.

“I’ve seen that woman’s real face Nurse. The face of her real self. It’s a good face. It’s a human