Compare And Contrast Rappaccini's Daughter And The Birthmark

137 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: The birthmark science

I believe that both of these stories speak volumes about the nature of man. It tells the story of two beautiful women who have flaws. In the Birthmark, Georgiana is described as very beautiful and sought after by many men despite the fact that she has a small hand shaped birthmark on her face. Her husband sees the birthmark as a flaw. In Rappaccini’s Daughter, Beatrice is also described as very beautiful. Her father, however, has used science to turn her into basically a poisonous plant. This describes many things to me. I feel like Hawthorne is trying to talk about how the eye of some people is never satisfied in The Birthmark. In Rappaccini’s Daughter, the father seems hell-bent on controlling and manipulating people in sadistic ways only

Show More
Related

  • A Comparison of The Ministers Black Veil and the Birthmark

    795 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both of these stories revolve around a lot of symbolism. These stories, since they really don't make a lot of sense on their own, force the reader to look deeper in an attempt to understand the ideas that Hawthorne tries to get across.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices In The Birthmark

    1416 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the major themes in "The Birthmark" is man’s obsession with perfection. Through the birthmark on Georgiana, Hawthorne is able to portray that nature didn’t intend for things to be perfect. People are not perfect because the human condition is imperfect. Aylmer’s desire to make his wife perfect is doomed to failure because perfection, Hawthorne suggests, is the exclusive province of heaven that cannot be found on earth. Because she becomes an ideal being, completely unmarred, Georgiana is no longer able to exist in this

    Read More

  • Mary E. Rucker's The Birth-Mark

    602 Words  | 2 Pages

    Yet they have not fully considered the implications of its underlying philosophy for many of the social and ethical concerns that dominate his canon and, importantly, for his aesthetic.” I found this article extremely hard to read and get through although some things throughout the article were quite interesting. In my opinion, the writer, Mary E. Rucker, did a fine job at staying on point throughout the entire article covering all the points she was making. I do agree with the interpretation that Mary E. Rucker did of the story “The Birth-Mark.” She does a good job going in depth on the character “Aylmer,” who is a brilliant yet misguided scientist and the protagonist of the story. Aylmer’s experiments and creations have made him famous in the scientific community. Although his intentions are good, Aylmer is a selfish and cruel man whose delusions ultimately kill his wife. Ultimately, this article did help me to understand “The Birth-Mark,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, somewhat

    Read More

  • Stifled Women in Yellow Wallpaper, Rappaccini's Daughter, and Beloved

    2746 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...iteracy and the Death of the Narrative in Hawthorne's 'The         Birthmark'." ATQ 9.4 (1995): 269-82.

    Read More

  • Rappaccini’s Daughter Essay: Solitude/Isolation in the Story and Hawthorne’s Life

    2318 Words  | 5 Pages

    In the Nathaniel Hawthorne tale, “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” we see and feel the solitude/isolation of the scientific-minded surgeon, Dr. Rappaccini, likewise that of his daughter, Beatrice, and finally that of the main character, Giovanni. Is this solitude not a reflection of the very life of the author?

    Read More

  • Comparing Artist of the Beautiful, Rappaccini's Daughter, Birthmark and Prophetic Pictures

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    In four of Hawthorne's stories there is a struggle for power and control as a vehicle to obtain perfection or beauty. In "The Artist of the Beautiful", "Rappaccini's Daughter", "The Birthmark" and "The Prophetic Pictures" the characters are controlled by their desire for perfection in their creations, but they do not achieve their goals without sacrifice.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Poe And Hawthorne

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    Hawthorne and Poe were great romantic writers and displayed the true conviction of knowing life and death in many different measures. It was this aspect that separated them from each other and made them completely different from each other. With all of the works between the two writers The Birthmark, The fall of the House of User, Annabelle Lee, and Rappaccini’s daughter these four would be both simultaneously the same and different. What has been said about these two writers can only be matched by the over whelming view on what their cherished more than the other. With Hawthorne was truly the gift of life, even though his wife died and his children had horrible tragedies of death due to sickness. It was the sense that Hawthorne knew he had fought for the love of his wife even though she was deathly ill and that postponed their marriage. It made him think that no matter what you have in this world you must cherish the good in it. This was evident in his stories and like Rappaccini’s daughter where the loss of the daughter truly affected the father in ways unimaginable. Even though he cherished her in a different light than others would Rappaccini looked at his frail daughter just as Hawthorne did his wife with all the love in the world. Poe was not the same though when the audience read his work. It was as if you knew there was a dark cloud that lingered over his work to portray that ultimate sense of gloom. As in Poe’s life he had tried several time s to find love and when he truly found it when he married Virginia Poe. With Poe he did not take the view of cherishing his loved ones but in fact sought the darker side of life when his wife died from the illness. This was the point where he would ever be haunted by his wife trying to prove to her that he will always love her no matter what burden he may

    Read More

  • Human Imperfection Illustrated in Hawthorne's The Birthmark

    900 Words  | 2 Pages

    To understand the message of “The Birthmark”, we must first understand the events and circumstances that took place in Hawthorn’s time period which most likely prompted him to write this short story. Nathaniel Hawthorn was a 19th century novelist who is perhaps best known for writing The Scarlet Letter. In Hawthorn’s time, a new belief system called positivism was on the rise. Positivism exalted science. This ne...

    Read More

  • Rappaccini Daughter Analysis

    658 Words  | 2 Pages

    Dual Aspects of Good and Evil in Rappaccini’s Daughter “Hawthorne shows in the tale that the inner world of human experience is a complex and ambiguous mixture of good and evil (Stallman 2).” Hawthorne portrays that the existence of good and evil is part of life and that a person can make a decision on which way to go. From the story, Hawthorne presents to the reader the character of Doctor Rappaccini, a scientist who experiments with poisonous plants and later on injects poison into his daughter Beatrice to transform her into achieving superhuman qualities. The transformation of Beatrice as well as her lover, Giovanni, into a poisonous being raises the question whether they are good or evil. In the novel “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporates figurative language, descriptive details, and allusions to portray the dual aspects of good and evil in each character to convey to the audience that humans embody both goodness and evil.

    Read More

  • The Birthmark Symbolism Essay

    1809 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Birthmark and Symbolism Cloudy headed and conflicted describes Georgina, one of the main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.” In this eerie short story Georgina, who is seemingly perfect, is convinced by her husband, Aylmer, who is a scientist obsessed with perfection, that the small birthmark on her face is her only source of imperfection. While others have told her that this birthmark is a sign of magical endowments, Aylmer is disgusted by the sight of the birthmark, referring to it as a defect (Hawthorne 304-5). Georgina is taken aback by this comment and resents her husband for it. As the story progresses, Aylmer convinces Georgina to allow him to try and rid her of the mark.

    Read More

  • The Birthmark

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    Every relationship is different. Weather one may be in a relationship with a boy, or just a friend, it is different. Even though they are different, the characters in “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “IND AFF” by Fay Weldon are in similar relationships. That is, the male is dominant over the female, and the woman thinks the man is her knight in shining armor. In the beginning of “IND AFF” the unnamed woman thinks her professor, Peter, who she is having an affair with, is her ticket to creating a good thesis and higher standings. Similarly, in “The Birthmark,” Georgiana thinks her husband is her ticket to flawless beauty because he tells her he will remove her birthmark. Obviously, this is not how relationships operate in today’s society. These two relationships compare and contrast with each other as well as with relationships in today’s day-and-age.

    Read More

  • The Birthmark

    390 Words  | 1 Pages

    1. Our society tends to be obsessed with the idea of physical perfection. How does our society manifest that obsession? How is the 'Birthmark'; an early version of our modern obsession with physical perfection?

    Read More

  • The Birthmark Character Analysis Essay

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Birthmark Theme Essay

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Rappaccini's Daughter Analysis

    1130 Words  | 3 Pages

    The premise of traditional parenting is one of the key ideologies behind Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini 's daughter; the passage of multiple generations however, has rendered this notion impractical and irrational due to societal shifts that have changed the mentality of parents throughout history. In effect, I will apply psychological criticism to investigate the effects of the declining traditional parenting.

    Read More

More about Compare And Contrast Rappaccini's Daughter And The Birthmark

Open Document