In this week's reading as we discover symbolism and theme I can recount endless symbols we’ve seen throughout all the short stories. I feel like one way or another every story has an overall theme or meaning the author is trying to get across to us as readers. We as readers interpret the overall theme and even the symbols in a different way, and it can depend on our own personal experiences in life. That’s what I personally enjoy about theme,there’s no right or wrong answers.
In the short story The Birth-Mark by Nathaniel Hawthorne it is undeniably clear the the birthmark itself is a symbol. Aylmer describes Georgina's, his wife's, birthmark as the flaw of humanity. “The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches …show more content…
The biggest symbol in the short story is of course the creature like worm. When the two girls set out to discover the forest with another young girl named Alys (Byatt 355), or so they think Alys tagged along with them that day, young Alys seems to have fallen in the creature's path. The creature destroyed everything in his path and resulted in her death (Byatt 359). The story is now taken further in time and now Penny and Primrose are older women, who seems to have such similar lives. “They established the skein of coincidence- dead fathers, unmarried status, child-caring professions, recently dead mothers”(Byatt 259). Both women have such similar lives because they haven’t moved on from that incident, and in effect it is reflected in their personal lives. The physical death of the child is the psychological death of Penny and Primrose.Penny and Primrose aren’t connected in their personal life. Penny always forgets the faces of her patients but she could never forget the face of the creature she saw that day and it was engraved in her brain ever since (Byatt 365).“I think there are things that are real- more real than we are- but mostly we don't cross their paths, or they don’t cross ours” (359). Penny feels like we’re not meant to cross roads with such creatures and monster …show more content…
Mr. Kapasi who for a living gives tours and is also works as interpreter for a Doctor (Lahiri 450) understands the importance of communicating effectively in the workplace. However, may not so much in his personal life as he begins to fall for Mrs. Das even though they’re both married (Lahiri 452). However, Mr.Kapasi doesn’t seem to feel too guilty because he never felt connected to his wife and he knew Mrs. Das wasn’t happily married either, because he saw the similarities of his marriage and Mrs. Das marriage. “The signs he recognized from his own marriage were there- the bickering- the indifference, the protracted silences. Her sudden interest in him, an interest she did not express in either her husband or her children” (Lahiri 452). As we begin to understand Mrs. Das as a character we understand that she too struggles to effectively communicate with her husband. After cheating on Mr. Das with a family friend and as a result she got pregnant with Bobby (Lahiri 457). As Mrs. Das admits that she had never once before told anyone about her infidelity not even Mr. Das (Lahiri 457). “Mr. Kapasi felt insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, trivial little secret” (Lahiri 457). However, Mrs. Das becomes very upset when Mr. Kapasi advises her that she should tell Mr. Das the truth. We start to understand that characters can speak the same language but that
In the short story The Birth-Mark by Nathaniel Hawthorne it is undeniably clear the the birthmark itself is a symbol. Aylmer describes Georgina's, his wife's, birthmark as the flaw of humanity. “The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches …show more content…
The biggest symbol in the short story is of course the creature like worm. When the two girls set out to discover the forest with another young girl named Alys (Byatt 355), or so they think Alys tagged along with them that day, young Alys seems to have fallen in the creature's path. The creature destroyed everything in his path and resulted in her death (Byatt 359). The story is now taken further in time and now Penny and Primrose are older women, who seems to have such similar lives. “They established the skein of coincidence- dead fathers, unmarried status, child-caring professions, recently dead mothers”(Byatt 259). Both women have such similar lives because they haven’t moved on from that incident, and in effect it is reflected in their personal lives. The physical death of the child is the psychological death of Penny and Primrose.Penny and Primrose aren’t connected in their personal life. Penny always forgets the faces of her patients but she could never forget the face of the creature she saw that day and it was engraved in her brain ever since (Byatt 365).“I think there are things that are real- more real than we are- but mostly we don't cross their paths, or they don’t cross ours” (359). Penny feels like we’re not meant to cross roads with such creatures and monster …show more content…
Mr. Kapasi who for a living gives tours and is also works as interpreter for a Doctor (Lahiri 450) understands the importance of communicating effectively in the workplace. However, may not so much in his personal life as he begins to fall for Mrs. Das even though they’re both married (Lahiri 452). However, Mr.Kapasi doesn’t seem to feel too guilty because he never felt connected to his wife and he knew Mrs. Das wasn’t happily married either, because he saw the similarities of his marriage and Mrs. Das marriage. “The signs he recognized from his own marriage were there- the bickering- the indifference, the protracted silences. Her sudden interest in him, an interest she did not express in either her husband or her children” (Lahiri 452). As we begin to understand Mrs. Das as a character we understand that she too struggles to effectively communicate with her husband. After cheating on Mr. Das with a family friend and as a result she got pregnant with Bobby (Lahiri 457). As Mrs. Das admits that she had never once before told anyone about her infidelity not even Mr. Das (Lahiri 457). “Mr. Kapasi felt insulted that Mrs. Das should ask him to interpret her common, trivial little secret” (Lahiri 457). However, Mrs. Das becomes very upset when Mr. Kapasi advises her that she should tell Mr. Das the truth. We start to understand that characters can speak the same language but that