Poe & Hawthorne

Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" and Nathan "William" Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" each expand on the common ideas of natural depravity and innocence.

In "The Birthmark", I thought that the way Hawthorne's character, Aylmer, favors the ideal beauty and frowns upon and is shocked by anything that does not parallel physical perfection. Aylmer sees this imperfection in his wife, Georgiana, who reveals that she had learned to embrace her birthmark and found it to be something that makes her unique. Also, when Aylmer is about to as well as when he operates on Georgiana, her being terrified of what is happening shows her kind and innocent disposition. These very ideas are the innocence that Hawthorne is trying to convey in the work. Aylmer's saying that he wants her to trust him and not doubt his scientific and medical expertise relays to the natural depravity, or evil, of his character because in the process of keeping Georgiana from keeping her natural imperfection, Aylmer destroys her spirit. To me, Aylmer seemed too sketchy because he tends to obviously hide things from his wife, whom he talks so sweetly to (but it also seems like he's talking down to her because he feels like she wouldn't understand what he was saying to her anyway) and requests that she not question his integrity - yet, another way Hawthorne depicts the natural depravity of the literature work.

Poe also uses natural depravity as well as innocence in "The Black Cat" by starting off the piece, explaining that he was always known for his innocence and "tenderness of heart" as a child. He and his wife also shared a great love for pets, which also links to the innocence theory. Poe uses natural depravity throughout the majority of this piece by containing a morbid and violent description of the brutal killing of a black cat. The narrator says that an evil force made him do these things because he would never brutally kill an animal with his own conscience. This battle of conscience, if you will, fully encompasses the innocence vs. natural depravity theme because the narrator's natural depravity is seemingly out of his control and his innocence is overpowered.