Anthology of Ideas

Failed attempts to attain perfection are a frequent subject in Hawthorne’s short stories; these attempts at perfection fail because Hawthorne’s protagonists are misguided and their own innate imperfections cloud their judgments. Hawthorne’s short stories “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” both feature a male protagonist who desires to recreate a woman into their own view of perfection. However, a person’s desires often tell more about themselves than others: the belief that something is imperfect reflects the believer not the thing.

Through the short stories “The Man of Adamant”, “The Birthmark” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Hawthorne’s presents three ways that people control the external forces — society, nature, and the public self — that affect the internal self and illustrates the totality of an individual’s attempt to place themselves above or beyond the reach of others, but in doing so, it warns that the individual also separates themselves from the intrinsic parts of being human.

Margaret Atwood uses her short story Happy Endings to show that it is not the end of a story that is important it is the middle. She seems to say that the endings are all cliché that the middle is the part that is unique. This holds true with literature versus a beach novel although a beach novel and piece of literature may end the same way it is the rest of the book that makes one different from the other.

The short story characteristically focuses on a single incident, a bit of action that is usually dramatic and ends in some sort of revelation”a flash of irony, comprehension, or insight. What happens is crucial and pivotal to the story. Because of its length if the story is to make a strong impression on us, it will do so not merely through the intensity of its concentrated action but through the implications the event suggests.

Failed attempts to attain perfection are a frequent subject in Hawthorne’s short stories; these attempts at perfection fail because Hawthorne’s protagonists are misguided and their own innate imperfections cloud their judgments. Hawthorne’s short stories “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” both feature a male protagonist who desires to recreate a woman into their own view of perfection. However, a person’s desires often tell more about themselves than others: the belief that something is imperfect reflects the believer not the thing.

Through the short stories “The Man of Adamant”, “The Birthmark” and “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Hawthorne’s presents three ways that people control the external forces — society, nature, and the public self — that affect the internal self and illustrates the totality of an individual’s attempt to place themselves above or beyond the reach of others, but in doing so, it warns that the individual also separates themselves from the intrinsic parts of being human.

Margaret Atwood uses her short story Happy Endings to show that it is not the end of a story that is important it is the middle. She seems to say that the endings are all cliché that the middle is the part that is unique. This holds true with literature versus a beach novel although a beach novel and piece of literature may end the same way it is the rest of the book that makes one different from the other.

The short story characteristically focuses on a single incident, a bit of action that is usually dramatic and ends in some sort of revelation”a flash of irony, comprehension, or insight. What happens is crucial and pivotal to the story. Because of its length if the story is to make a strong impression on us, it will do so not merely through the intensity of its concentrated action but through the implications the event suggests.