A Comparison of The Ministers Black Veil and the Birthmark Essay

A Comparison of The Ministers Black wipe out and the BirthmarkBoth of these stories orbit around a lot of symbolism. These stories, since they really dont make a lot of sense on their own, force the reader to look deeper in an attempt to take in the ideas that Hawthorne tries to get across. The first and most evident symbol is the faces of the people. Georgiana has the birthmark if the shape of a hand, and the black veil that Hooper wore. I think that Hawthorne chooses to focus on the peoples faces because a persons face is pretty much the center of their being. The face is where a person shows the majority of their emotions, and it holds the brain, which well, is where e verything starts at. So, a persons face is very important. Another prevalent symbol to me is the idea of sin. In The Ministers Black Veil Hooper just suddenly one day shows up to church wearing a veil. At first the people are sort of angered by it. People soon start to flock to his congregation to view the spec tacle, and go so far as to test their courage by seeing who will go and talk to him. I think that the veil could represent sin. In The Ministers Black Veil Hooper was either trying to hide his sin from the people so that they could not judge him, which is gods job, or maybe he was trying to protect his self from the sins of the people. In the end of The Ministers Black Veil Hooper dies, and sees his congregation all wearing black veils, which would probably hint that maybe it represented the sin in all of us. In The Birthmark Georgianas birthmark could represent, as some religions believe, the original sin which is bestowed on all by the hand of god. But, unlike Hooper, Georgiana could not support her markings. ... ...iana, almost perfect, is still mortal, and carries the burden of original sin. This is the puritan idea that every human is sinful. The Birthmark is in the shape of a hand because it is the work of God, make by Gods own hand and will. In short, Alymer tries to p lay God by ridding Georgiana of her original sin, and make a perfect being. But no mortal go off be perfect, and no mortal can not have original sin. Thus when the experiment works, Georgiana achieves perfection and can no longer be a mortal, thus she dies. Moral of the story You cannot improve on Gods creation. Alymer is a sinner because he tries to be god by trying to improve on Gods creation. He is successful in improving georgiana, but is not successful in improving Gods creation, because Georgiana can no longer live as a mortal, and she thus dies - thus Alymer is unsuccessful.