Weekly Outline
Week 1, 1/14 -- Introductions
Week 2, 1/21 -- What is literature? What is identity?
Week 3, 1/28 -- Narration, paper #1 due
Week 4, 2/4 -- Character, Setting, Symbol, Theme
Week 5, 2/11 -- Quiz #1, film
Week 6, 2/18 -- Poetry
Week 7, 2/25 - - Poetry, paper #2 due
Week 8, 3/4 -- Poetry
Week 9, 3/11 -- Poetry, paper #3 due
Week 10, 3/18 -- (out of class work on blog)
Week 11, 3/25 -- SPRING BREAK
Week 12, 4/1 -- Quiz #2 on poetry, Theory
Week 13, 4/8 -- Poetry paper #4 due, Theory, film
Week 14, 4/15 -- Theory
Week 15, 4/22 -- Theory, quiz #3
Week 16, 4/29 -- Paper #5 due
Week 17, 5/6 - Final Exam PARTY
I took the symbolism of the birthmark to be directly relating to society and the way we shape our beliefs. We base our belief systems off of what other people say should be right even if we feel like it's wrong. Georgiana loved her hand shaped birthmark until her husband came in and gave her a complex about it. She lived her life thinking that it only added to her beauty until she was suckered into the belief that there was something wrong with her. Pygmalion was fortunate enough to have created his ideal wife and then have her bought to life by a goddess and they lived happily ever after but our friend Alymer wasn't as lucky. He allowed his greed for "perfection" to overcome him and he neglected the very thing that he was striving so hard to achieve. As soon as he got what he wanted it was instantly taken from him as a reminder to cherish whats in front of him. I believe that science can make people feel like gods and they can often get egotistical and narcissistic.
ReplyDeleteI believe the symbolism of the birthmark is how we let society dictate what we do or how we change. We let society or what other people say determine what we do or how we react to things. In this case, Georgiana loved her hand shaped birthmark and felt special over everyone else. She felt it helped bring out how beautiful she was. Her husband Alymer hated the mark and wanted it gone immediately. This ties to the myth of Pygmalion because he was able to create his perfect wife and have her come alive and they lived happy and peacefully. Alymer had a beautiful wife and tried to change her which ultimately left him alone. He wanted too much perfection, and didn't appreciate the things he had right in front of him. When he tries to change Georgiana and take away the birthmark; she dies and it leaves him with no one.
ReplyDelete-Stephen Stroop
Perfection is something that Alymer strives for. The birthmark on his wives cheek is not perfection in his eyes. He so badly wants to remove it. The symbolism of the birth mark holds great truth to this generation. Although, it is a lot easier to change things now, it does not make them right. It symbolizes way more than just something on her face. Everyone wants to be perfect, but what is perfection. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but Alymer is still not happy. He gets his wife to believe there is truly something wrong with her. Pygmalion relates to this story because he had made his ideal woman as a sculpture who was then turned into a real person. Pygmalion had a happy ending unlike Alymer. He was so caught up in making his wife perfect and being very shallow that his wife died once she reached his ideal person. On the internet and on every social network, everyone is striving to have that perfect body and face when in reality those people who exude perfection do not exude it naturally. Everything is photo shopped and fabricated to look like something it is not so it can create something people strive to be.
ReplyDelete--Natalie Diciaula
I think the birthmark symbolizes independence. She loved her birthmark until her husband had a problem with it. This relates to how we are in this world, when someone says something about your characteristics it can really take a toll on your conscious. We live in a society of how perfect you look is how you will be treated, but on a real note everyone is made in a perfect image, and it’s not what people say about you is what makes you perfect, but being yourself makes you perfect. The birthmark is shaped as a hand on her left cheek and the only time it disappears is when she blushes. Hawthorne’s story ties differently than “The Birthmark”. He creates his perfect wife and life goes on happily from there but in “The Birthmark” the husband tries to create a perfect wife then she dies because of his selfishness.
ReplyDelete-Hampton Schaffer
I think that symbolic significance of the birthmark is that it is related to our actions and how we are based on the people around us. The birthmark reflects how we go about our daily life and feelings towards the rest of society. We let society dictate so much of our life. For example, we are always trying to say the right thing or believe the belief just to please the people around us. Georgiana's birthmark, which was shaped as a little hand, made her feel confident about herself. However, Alymer, her husband, disagreed and wasn't afraid to hide his dislike towards the mark. Georgiana's insecurity grew due to her husband wanting her to get rid of the "flaw". This story ties with Pygmalion because he created his idea of the perfect woman and live happily forever. Alymer, however, wanted to fix his wife to make her flawless, but there was nothing really wrong about her in the first place. Alymer was left alone after he tried to change Georgiana's birthmark.
ReplyDeleteThe birth mark represents all imperfections and insecurities. The mark, although small and a lot of the times invisible, is the cause of a tragic ending. Aylmer’s need for perfection and obsession with science leads Georgina to believe that she is worthless with her mark. She goes as far to say that she will risk her life to have the mark erased. The story represents the useless strive for perfection. Aylmer learns in the end that science comes after other peoples needs. He lets his obsession get in the way of his marriage and ends up paying the ultimate price. Georgina often gets offended by some of Aylmer’s routines. She finds a potion that would allow someone to die quickly or prolong the death. After noticing this and the behavior of Aylmer at work, she realizes that his work is a dangerous obsession. Aylmer realizes it when it is too late, and although the mark fades, Georgina dies.
ReplyDeleteThe birthmark symbolizes human kind’s perfect imperfections. These natural imperfections shape each person’s individual identity, and mankind is not built to be entirely perfect in every way, shape, and form. The birthmark, which was with Georgiana her whole life (was considered a charm to her growing up), had now “grow[n] more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives.” The husband gave this information to Georgiana, and over time it maddened her, she also became obsessed with removing this birthmark, which was compared to “sin, sorrow, decay, and death.” The birthmark is her source of human spirit, and without her birthmark she would be perfect, and perfection is not attainable in a human, and it shouldn’t be sought after.
ReplyDeleteThis story coincides with the story of Pygmalion in that he took his wife’s life over his own. When he said”Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be”, he meant that he will be even more thrilled than Pygmalion was with his beautiful sculpture that he had fallen in love with. Hawthorne’s story ties into the myth in that he attains beauty even more marvelous than any sculpture could ever be, and his woman is actually alive in the flesh, but he will soon understand that true human perfection is actually unattainable. This ties into science in that he is a scientist who is performing this “birthmark removal” which is apparently a very complicated and serious condition. Technology had evolved quite a lot in that he was able to rid her of this “curse” but he didn’t need to in actuality.
Demetrius A. Jones
ReplyDeleteMark Shealy
ENC 1102
February 11, 2015
The Birth Mark
In the time era this takes place science and philosophy is still at its birth. Elmer believes that he can alter spiritualism and physical chemical make up through science. In a sense Elmer is trying to to act as a god. Elmer's love for science exceeds his love for his wife only because of the unknown. Instead of accepting his wife as perfect as she is, this tiny flaw on her check eventually eats at him so bad it causes her to lose her life. Gergiana loves her husband and is so devout she decides to follow him at any and all cost.
The birthmark represents imperfection. The majority of people in the world see imperfection as an attractive trait. If everyone was perfect, there would be nothing to distinguish one person form the other. In the book Aylmer is a person who sees the imperfection and can’t look beyond it. Every time he looks at Georgiana he sees that and only that. In his mind the birthmark is the problem and if it was removed he could see Georgiana in her entirety. In the myth of Pygmalion, the sculptor carved a perfect looking woman. In his mind she was the culmination of beauty. He asked for the statue to come to life and so it did. In technology today, there seems to always be an option to alter the way a person looks. From makeup to Photoshop to plastic surgery, people are always trying to achieve the perfect look, however they often sacrifice their imperfections along the way.
ReplyDelete-joshua McGLone
I think the symbolic importance of this story is that we are always focused on others in society. I feel like we are far to judgmental on others physical appearance. In the story Georgiana's birth mark was not a flaw to her, but to her husband he thought it was an imperfection. This caused her to believe that it was. I think the moral of this story is that we should be proud of who we are and what we look like, and that we should not try to conform to what society wants us to be.
ReplyDelete-Ryan Kay
I think the birthmark represented the mark society leaves on people and the endless need for everything to be perfect. Aylmer was obsessed with science and finding an answer to Georgina's imperfection no matter the cost. Georgina at first felt beautiful with her mark and as if it set her apart, as people had told her before. However, after her husband criticized her and her mark, the one insult completely turned her view around and she was willing to die to remove the mark from her face. He knew that what he was doing could be dangerous, but the success of removing it was more important to him, and loving the beauty of her perfection, not vise versa. In the end, the hand mark is removed, and Georgina dies, but I feel as if he learns no true lesson because from the beginning he cares more for it to be gone than of her. It ties into the myth of Pygmalion, who created the perfect woman and lived happily, but when Aylmer tried, he failed.
ReplyDeletemadison
I think the birthmark is a representation of society and the pressure of fitting in. Society effects everything we do and we obsess with what others will think of us instead of how we feel. Georgina doesn't have a problem with her birthmark until her husband mentions he doesn't like it. We can hear a million positive things about ourselves, but it is that one negative thing that always gets to us. Her husband's obsession with her flaw drives her to believe it is true. He then begins to try to find ways to get rid of it instead of reassuring her she is not worthless. The story ties into science because her husband used chemistry to create the potion like substance to get rid of Georgina's birthmark
ReplyDeleteChristopher Bijou
I believe that the birthmark represents how we let the opinions of people shape how we feel about ourselves. Before Aylmer said anything negative about her birthmark, she loved it and it made her feel unique and special. But once someone else says something about it in a negative way, she begins to hate it and herself. This is symbolic of the way that we allow the opinions of society to shape how we feel about ourselves. As the birthmark fades, she starts to get happy and like herself again. But it costs her life, which is representative of the way that letting society dictate how you feel about yourself can have negative effects on your wellbeing. Science is a theme throughout the story because he tries to use science to “Fix her”, but it ends up failing. This shows how science is not a way out when it comes to fixing ourselves.
ReplyDeleteAllison McDowell
The symbolic significance of the birthmark is nature’s imperfection. The husband is bothered by his wife’s birthmark on her face and questions why it was placed there by nature. In his eyes his wife was the perfect creation except for one small distinctive mark. It comes to show that no matter how beautiful a person is in inside and out others will always find a negative feature about them. The Hawthorne story ties to technology because the husband uses a robot to remove the birth mark that laid rest on his wife’s face. Technology has made us seek for imperfections instead of feeling satisfied with nature’s natural creations.
ReplyDeleteJoseph Ledo-Massey
The birthmark is symbolic in how each person is different from each other. The mark also shows how people will let others opinions take a toll on their own. In the beginning, Georgiana favors her birthmark as personal beauty. The birthmark was unique and something she could call hers. Her husband Aylmer thought the opposite, claiming the birth mark to be a burden. Pygmalion was able to create his perfect wife and enjoy life with her. Aylmer was so fixated on perfection, he lost his chance at happiness. Instead of looking past a simple mark on Georgiana’s face, he lost Georgiana. As the birthmark started fading away in effect from the clear liquid, so did Georgiana.
ReplyDelete- Sidney Freeman
I think the birthmark resembles the flaws in every person. I think the hand made her feel as if something was touching her and comforting her to make her feel as if the mark was just what it was, a birthmark. The flaws do not make or break us, but at the same time, people are going to make judgements by looking at whats on the outside. Alymer wanted to make Georgiana perfect, just like Pygmalion wanted to create the flawless woman. In making Georgiana's birthmark disappear, he lost his wife because he didn't see her for what she was underneath. I would compare this to the app Tinder. By using Tinder you see what the person wants you to think they are like; their best picture, a bio that is not totally accurate, and conversations over text so you don't actually get to see the true "them" until you eventually meet up with he or she in person.
ReplyDeleteThe birth mark represents how people feel about their imperfections and insecurities. Aylmer's wife has a small mark on her cheek that is in the shape of a hand. The mark is usually unnoticed and is something that Georgina doesn't wont to get rid of. However, Alymer has a need for perfection and an obsession for science. This eventually leads Georgina to believe that the mark needs to be taken away. The story shows that the strive for perfection is useless, nothing is perfect. Alymer wants for his wife to be perfect so bad that he is unaware of what might happen to his wife. He realizes that his need for perfection ends up killing his wife in the end.
ReplyDelete-William Canaday
Georgiana appreciated her birthmark and thought it made her special. She thought it was beautiful. It wasn't something to be ashamed of until her husband said so. This story is significant because everyone suffers from insecurities. Her husband lost her because he tried to change her, and this implies that you shouldn't allow people to tell you how they think you should be or look. If you love something about yourself then you have every right to keep it.
ReplyDeleteAngela Beabout
The birth mark represents the worlds pressures to be perfect and what man will do to become perfect or god like. Its in the shape of a tiny hand, said to be the hand of an angel touching her at birth. It changes coloration when Alymer starts to play god with things he truly does not understand in the least of the sense. Everytime he does something he believes will cure Georgiana the mark becomes faint but with the faintness god steps in to protect his creation and takes a piece of her in some other way. This story tells us that no matter how advanced we believe we are we are no where near as smart as we think we are and no where near to dealing with the work of nature as god gave it to us.
ReplyDelete-zach harder
I think the birthmark in this story represents mortality. Alymer views his wife as a perfect being, something that only immortal entities are. This one little flaw shows Alymer that unless the birthmark is removed, his wife is mortal. Alymer becomes obsessed with removing the birthmark, failing to realize that his succession could lead to his wife’s death. Georgiana, however, realizes that her husband will stop at nothing to take away the birthmark and that she will most likely die in the process. She goes along with it to make her husband happy, so he is no longer repulsed by her because of this small flaw. Alymer eventually succeeds and hands his wife a potion to drink. She takes it and the birthmark slowly disappears. However, as soon as the last outline fades away, Georgiana takes her last breath and dies. Alymer tries to create his vision of a perfect, ideal woman like Pymalion
ReplyDelete*Megan McNeely
The birthmark symbolized self-consciousness and how people are so concerned with the way they look, how other people think they look, and the concern of what other people think in general. She so badly wants to change her appearance because of her husbands concern. She finally ingests a potion that was given to her in order to remove the birthmark and she herself is taken away with the birthmark. The birthmark symbolizes individuality and was a representation of her individuality and character. When the birthmark disappears, she disappears with it because she is no longer an individual.
ReplyDeleteDaniel Dearing
I personally believe that the birthmark simply stands for all the imperfections within the world. To a scientist, everything has reason. Not being able to quickly uncover the reasoning of this birthmark that inhabits the face as otherwise a perfect woman, the scientist is forced to believe that it does not belong and becomes obsessed with its removal. So many different forms of symbolism exist within this story. She goes along with what her husband says much like people listen to everything society has to say. Perfection is not a real thing and only exist in different worlds. Whenever he imperfection was removed she became completely perfect and no longer belonged in the human world. Although the wife believes her birthmark to be unique and views it positively she is quickly phased by what everyone else things of her. Technology is used in hope to reach perfection but fails in many aspects much like Alymer.
ReplyDeleteGeorgina's birthmark was something that made her unique, she loved it, and most other people didn't see it as an imperfection but something that added character. However, her husband thought it was an imperfection, and it bothered him greatly. He being a man of science begged Georgina to allow him to remove the birthmark, eventually Georgina allowed him to remove it. She just wanted her husband to be happy with her and not think of any part of her as an imperfection, and she did not want to live without him. She told her husband to remove the birthmark, but if he failed he was to kill her. Her husband removed the birthmark, but Georgina died anyway. The birthmark was something that made Georgina who she was, but Alymer, her husband, was too bind to see that, he only wanted perfection even at her expense, he was selfish.
ReplyDelete-Shane Parent`