Comparing Pursuit of Perfection by Poe and Hawthorne and the Realism of

Pursuit of Perfection by Poe and Hawthorne and the Realism of Melville and Jacobs One of the elements of Romanticism is the pursuit of perfection. While Poe and Hawthornes characters strive in empty for the perfect woman (or rather her perfect attribute) or the perfectly engineered person, Melville already knows that perfection is an illusion. Melville paints a more realistic portrait of the imperfections of society. The women writers take Melvilles assessments of the world and the military personnel condition even further. Phelps and Jacobs know first-hand about the misconceptions of perfection and the inability to capture that image. The burden of seamless domesticity wears on the women in these stories. Jacobs story carries the heaviest burden of all beingness undermined by the repression of women and the hardships of slavery. In Poes Ligeia the narrator is captivated by his wifes beauty and intelligence, with which he becomes obsessed. He is particularly attracted to the dea r music of her low sweet voice. Her high-minded and immense learning makes her unique and intriguing. However, because her knowledge was such(prenominal) as the narrator had never known in a woman she is a threat. Johanyak says that, Poes intellectual heroines atomic number 18 first idealized and then feared or misunderstood by men who fail to understand or accept their quest for knowledge (63). The narrator admits that he had never known her at fault. In essence, he is conceding that she was in fact the perfect woman. In the fateful pattern of Poes female characters, such perfection must be punished. She dies and the narrator agonizes over his loss. It is not until this retelling of their marriage that the narrator truly appreciates all that she was and all that ... ... Dayan, Joan. The Identity of Berenice. Studies in Romanticism 23.4 (1984) 491-513. Holly, Carol. Shaming the ego in The Angel Over the Right Shoulder. American Literature 60.1 (1988) 42-60. Johanyak, Debra. P oesian Feminism Triumph or Tragedy. CLA Journal 39.1 (1995) 62-70. Morgan, Winifred. Gender Related Differences in the Slave Narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. American Studies 35.2 (1994) 73-94. Rosenberg, Liz. The Best that Earth Could Offer. The Birth-Mark a Newlyweds Story. Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (1993) 145-51. Rowland, Beryl. Sitting up with a Corpse Malthus According to Melville in Poor Mans Pudding and replete Mans Crumbs. Journal of American Studies 6 (1972) 69-83. Zanger, Jules. Speaking of the Unspeakable Hawthornes The Birth-Mark. Modern Philology 80.4 (1983) 364-71.