Essay on the Women of Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark,...

The Women of Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark, and Rappaccini’s Daughter In his short stories, Young Goodman Brown, The Birthmark, and Rappaccinià ¢s Daughter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses his female characters to illustrate the folly of demanding perfection in the flawed world of humanity. Although Hawthorneà ¢s women appear to have dangerous aspects, they are true of heart, and thus, they cannot be fully possessed by the corrupt men who seek to control them. Hawthorne endows each of his heroines with both light and dark elements. Although each one is inherently pure, none of these women are entirely free from the accusations leveled by the men in their lives. In Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne presents Faith as the ideal†¦show more content†¦Finally, Goodman Brown arrives at the initiation ceremony only to be confronted by the image of his wife at the unholy altar. Although Hawthorne never offers any true evidence that Goodman Brownà ¢s experience in the woods was anything more than a dream or hallucination, the Puritan passes judgment on Faith, and forever doubts her goodness. By allowing his audience to internally assess Faithà ¢s guilt or innocence, Hawthorne forces his reader into a role of complicity with Goodman Brown (McFarland 37). Thus, Hawthorne has created a troubling character with both light and dark facets. Hawthorne achieves this same task in the character of Georgiana in The Birthmark. Georgiana, too, is presented as an ideal specimen of womanhood. She is beautiful, intelligent, and devoted to her husband, the alchemist, Aylmer. She would be absolute perfection, except for one flaw: a birthmark in the shape of a fairy-sized handprint on her left cheek. While those who love Georgiana attest that the mark is a symbol of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts, Aylmer and her detractors regard it as a bloody hand that belies his wifeà ¢s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death (Hawthorne, The Birthmark 119-20). Hawthorne continues to impart Aylmerà ¢s inner feelings of shock and horror over Georgianaà ¢s single physical flaw, gradually leading his audience to share his disgust for the dreadfulShow MoreRelatedTragic flaw in Hawthorne’s â€Å"The Birthmark† Essay1201 Words   |  5 Pagesï » ¿ An expository essay: Tragic flaw in Hawthorne’s â€Å"The Birthmark† In literature a tragic flaw refers in plain words when the main character ends up dead or defeated a characteristic feature of the heroes of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories, â€Å"Young Goodman Brown,† â€Å"The Minister’s Black Veil†, and â€Å"The Birthmark†. However this concept is even more extensive and best explained in terms of â€Å"Hamartia†. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica that word can be understood as an inherent defect