The Theme Of Pride In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

The first thing the author mentions in the passage from "Araby” (James Joyce, 1914) is vanity. Vanity is excessive pride in appearances or achievements. The central theme of the fiction story “The Birth-Mark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne is vanity. The main character, Aylmer is a scientist, married to a woman, Georgiana, who in his eyes, is almost perfect. The only flaw she has is a small, hand-shaped birthmark on her cheek. He tells her, “...you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect... shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” (Hawthorne, 1843) He has the idea that his wife should be perfect, and this idea is so strong for him that even the sight of her birthmark makes him shudder.

Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” (Shakespeare, 1600) She says this because she’s madly in love with a man named Demetrius, who happens to be in love with Helena’s best friend. Her love for Demetrius causes her pain, since she very obviously wants him, but he doesn’t want anything to do with her. When she says, “Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind,” she’s saying that her attraction to Demetrius isn’t stemmed from what she sees: his hatred for her, his annoyance at her presence, his harsh words, but from the image of him she has in her mind: the love that he can give her, the life she wants to have with him, the relationship she longs for. The story “The Lady with the Dog” is about two married people who end up having an affair with each other. They each went on vacation to an island, and both are unsatisfied with the current lives they are leading. During the affair, they fall in love. However, when Anna, the lady with the dog, must leave and go back to her husband and the life she had before this vacation, she’s struck with the guilt and remorse of cheating on her husband. As they both go about their normal daily lives, they can’t seem to stop thinking of each other, and they meet again, and the affair

The poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” (W.B. Yates, 1888) also has a similar theme. The speaker talks about leaving where he’s at and travelling to an isolated island, Innisfree, where he “shall have some peace there.” (Yates, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” 1888) The speakers in both poems want to get away from the lives they have and find peace in nature. Similarly, the poem “Dover Beach” (Matthew Arnold, 1867) describes a peaceful night in nature. A calm sea, fair moon, a tranquil bay, all describe a peaceful night in the seaside town which the author is describing. The poem also says, “...for the world, which seems / to lie before us like a land of dreams, / so various, so beautiful, so new.” (Arnold, “Dover Beach”, 1867) The author is saying that the world can be a new, beautiful place full of dreams and