American romanticism assignment

American Romanticism has many major themes, some are highly imaginative and subjective, Emotion intensity, Escapism, common man as the hero, and nature as a refuge or source of knowledge. The second generation of American Romanticism authors were had a few very well known authors that started the movement like Nathaniel Hawthorn, Edgar Allen Poe, Ralph Wald Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller and, and Herman Melville. The authors were to separate themselves from the European movement, “ Their representation of the new nation as basically innocent and purged of old world vices”(Pease).

The authors also wrote stories about the conflicts of exploring nature. The second generation of authors wrote short stories, and books about exploring nature, philosophy, and the conflicts of science which made them different than the first generation of authors. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804 and died in 1864. The famous author as born in Salem Massachusetts into a family whose ancestors were among the earliest of settlers. Hawthorne was born into a Puritan family, which meaner he was raised in a very strict lifestyle.

A short story that shows irony, and how Hawthorn’s characters end up in bad situations is called “ The Birthmark. ” “ The Birthmark” is about a scientist named Laymen who decided to leave science for spiritual reasons. “ It was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of a women”(Hawthorne 215). Laymen persuades a beautiful woman, who all the guys chase, to marry him. While he was married to Georgian, Laymen found the most slightest imperfection on her face, a birthmark annoying and ugly. Georgian was perfect except for the birthmark on her face that resembled a hand.

The birthmark on Georgians face made Laymen think that she was not perfect, while the est. of the guys thought she was perfect besides the fact she had a birthmark that resembled a hand on her cheek. Laymen wanted to change Georgians imperfection through science because he wanted to “ perfect” his wife. No matter the consequences Laymen wanted to challenge nature with science, and also change the culture. Laymen makes a potion that Georgian drink that makes the birthmark on her face start to disappear, but as the birthmark starts to disappear Georgian passes away.

Since Laymen was being selfish and Just thinking about himself and perfecting nature he lost love, and his wife Georgian. In “ The Birthmark” there is a spot in the story where Laymen obsesses over the birthmark on Georgians cheek so much, that he had a dream where he ripped out ere heart, “ Laymen now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with Indaba, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark.

But deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasps appeared to have caught a hold of Georgians heart; whence however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut it or wrench it away'(Hawthorne 217). I feel like this shows that no matter what Laymen did, he needed to take the birthmark off of Georgians face, even if that did mean he would have to take out her heart to do so. What Hawthorne is trying to say in his story is that not one man in the world could perfect tauter, and one should not try because no one knows the consequences of doing so.