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Comparing Symbols In The Necklace And The Birthmark

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Comparison of Symbols in “The Necklace” and “The Birthmark”
In both Guy de Maupassant's short story “The Necklace” and Nathaniel Hawthorne's “The Birthmark”, the theme of vanity as downfall is very prominent. Maupassant's use of the birthmark and Hawthorne's use of the necklace as symbols offer direct evidence to this theme. My goal in this paper is to compare and contrast the two main symbols of the short stories in question using evidence from the source material.
“The Birthmark” involves Georgiana, the young and beautiful wife of a scientist, who has a birthmark the shape of a tiny, red human hand. Georgiana, who previously thought her birthmark to be charming, senses her husband's disgust in this perceived disfigurement. After a particularly jarring display of her husband’s disgust for her birthmark, she becomes willing to remove it because she wants her husband's love and admiration again. The birthmark actually, …show more content…

Loisel detests her real life, often daydreaming about having a better one. Her husband, a working class man, cues in on this and in a desire to make her happy has hopped through many hoops to get her an invitation to a fancy ball thrown by his boss. She borrows a diamond necklace from her wealthy friend Madame Forestier in order to ‘fit in’ with the upperclass. Over the course of the night, she loses this necklace, and the next ten years are spent by her husband and herself working in “abject poverty” to pay the loans needed in order to replace it. The necklace ends up being a fake, representing the wife’s opportunity to pretend to be the woman she had always dreamt of being, if only for a few hours, and how this vanity ruins what little bit of comfort her life held

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Intro: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictional short story “The Birthmark” and The Twilight Zone’s darkly romantic episode “Eye of the Beholder” both use gothic elements and delve into the realm of science to explore concepts of beauty and perfection. Through their contrasting characterizations of the scientist and employments of irony and allusions, each work comes to its own conclusions about how to define and treat beauty. Body #1: The Birthmark From the very first paragraph, Hawthorne’s story revolves around Aylmer, a scientist who supposedly gives up his career to marry the beautiful woman of his dreams, Georgiana.

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Analyzation of The Birth Mark Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth Mark” shows readers the foolishness and selfishness of trying to create a perfect being and defying our creator. Nathaniel shows an example of this act by publishing this story of Aylmer and his non-perfect wife, who has a birth mark in the shape of a hand on her cheek. Aylmer is so disgusted with this mark that he soon begins to use science to take care of the problem. Throughout “The Birth Mark” Hawthorne performs different symbols that indicate Aylmer is just a human being and challenging God to make a perfect human will always lead to death.

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She is very beautiful and as close to perfect as they come, but she cannot seem to look past the birthmark anymore. She wants her husband to see her as beautiful like he did before the marriage. " And she places her hand over her cheek, to hide the terrible mark from her husband's eyes. " Even has she is dying one of the things she does is hide the birthmark. She does not want her husband to look at it and see the thing he despises most on her.

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“The Birthmark by Nathaniel is a short story about a man wanting to perfect his wife. His main purpose in life becomes to find a process that will remove the birthmark from his beautiful wifes Georgina's face. Analyzing the story further, the reader can use symbolism, point of view/tone, and setting to better understand the conflict between nature and science. One can analyze “The Birthmark” by understanding the symbolism found throughout the story. The actual birthmark is a small red hand shaped mark in the middle of Georgiana's left cheek.

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Hawthorne uses imagery sense of smell to get readers to imagine the scene, “When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness” (Hawthorne). “The Birthmark” also creates irony with “Aminadab, the less inferior man to Aylmer is the one who speaks sensible to Aylmer by disclaiming that if Georgiana was his wife, he would not try to remove the birthmark” (“The Birthmark”). The figurative language helps enhance the story. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s meaning for the story was a man’s strive to perfection only caused the death of his wife. Aylmer was too focused on what perfect could be, and Georgiana blindly agrees with him and decides to remove the birthmark, despite never having a problem with it.

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Georgiana took note of Aylmer’s displeasure of the birthmark from the dream and through his stealthy stare, causing Georgina displeasure (Nathaniel Hawthorne 114). Aylmer’s further loathing of the birthmark, causes Georgiana to give up for the sake of his happiness. She tells, Aylmer after bringing up the conversation of the birthmark, “Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life!” (Nathaniel Hawthorne 114). Aylmer could have avoided tragedy, however he failed to listen to his assistant Aminadab, who stated he would “never part with that birthmark” (Nathaniel Hawthorne 114).

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Hawthorne creates similar characters in these two short stories to state that women are pure, flaws are human, and the flaws have motives of their own. A main theme in Hawthorne’s works is women are pure. This is the case for these two short stories as Georgiana and Beatrice both listen intently to their male counterparts and lack the flaws that the men in their stories contain. Georgiana is supportive of her husband’s decision to attempt to rid her of her birthmark and even as she questions it, she ponders the happiness it would bring

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The first and most important use of symbolism we receive is that of the birthmark. We learn that, “in the centre of Georgians's left cheek, there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face” (205). Upon further reading Hawthorne tells us that, “Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand” (205). Georgiana had a birthmark right in the middle of her left cheek that resembled a tiny hand in which Aylmer thought was very imperfect. The birthmark symbolizes mortality or an imperfection of

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717 Words | 3 Pages

In the story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he uses several techniques to help build his story. Hawthorne tells a story of a man of science whose name was Aylmer. He married a beautiful women named Georgiana, although she was quite beautiful she had a birthmark on her face which, in Aylmer’s eyes was an imperfection. Aylmer tries to perfect Georgiana, but in the end Aylmer’s attempts to change Georgiana causes him to lose her. Aylmer does not accept the idea of imperfections in people.

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408 Words | 2 Pages

The hand serves as the image of mankind. Aylmer sees his wife’s birthmark as “the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death” (2). The way he views the mark on her cheek serves as a reminder that death is inevitable for both him and Georgiana. It contrasts Aylmer’s idea of achieving perfection through science and it disturbs him. When Aylmer dreams of removing Georgiana’s birthmark, he sees that the hand’s “tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away,” (3).

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The author does this to give us the impression that the birthmark is no ordinary birthmark, but that it has some sort of mystical tie to Georgiana. Another example is how the story talks of how Georgiana was like a celestial being after Aylmer had relieved her of her only flaw but he regretted removing it for it also ridded

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In The Birthmark, Hawthorne depicts the obsession for perfection, the tole it takes on one and the consequences it has. The quest for perfection is unrealistic and unobtainable as we are only mere humans incapable of reconstructing our DNA. In The Birthmark, Hawthorne tells the story of a woman named Georgiana and her scientist husband Aylmer, who are both fixated on a birthmark similar to the look of a tiny human hand. Aylmer is disgusted by Georgiana’s birthmark, wanting to please her husband Georgiana is willing to do anything for him to look at her in a normal manner “Danger is nothing to me;for life which this hateful mark

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(Hawthorne 295) This shows that she could not get out of her head the way Aylmer would looked at her birthmark. It scared her to she would continue to have to deal with the ridicule from him. No Matter how many times Georgiana hints at not wanting the procedure done, Aylmer continues to reassure her that she would not be harmed. Aylmer is so overjoyed about the birthmark being gone that he barely realizes his wife is in distress.

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The Price of Perfection Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the short story “The Birthmark” in 1843 and it is set at a time when science was an emerging field. Science at that time was unexplainable and mysterious to the common person which lead to it being referred to as magic. One of the themes that is common in Hawthorne's work is the sinful nature and impurity that is at the heart of each person. Hawthorne shows the dilemma of the flawed nature of a person and the ultimate price of perfection that will be paid.

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Originating in France, ‘The Necklace’ is a short story written by French writer Guy de Maupassant in the late nineteenth century, the period where literary movements realism and naturalism dominated French fiction. Maupassant played an important role in both the realist movement and the naturalist movement through his depiction of the setting as well as the character’s decision. The short story reflects upon the rigid patriarchal society during the late nineteenth century, demonstrating how the wealth of a person can lead to their generosity and greed; thus affecting their lifestyles. Through ‘The Necklace’, Maupassant aims to depict the conflicts between the upper-class and the lower class, how their inner desires vary. This essay will analyze ‘The Necklace’ and how Maupassant uses the social context, characters and literary devices in the short story to illustrate his misogynistic viewpoints towards women.

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