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 gain in vain 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 weigh Melvilles assessments of the world and the human condition even further. Phelps and Jacobs know first-hand about the misconceptions of perfection and the inability to capture that image. The agitate of seamless domesticity wears on the women in these stories. Jacobs story carries the heaviest burden of all being 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 dear music of her lo w winning voice. Her rare and immense learning makes her unique and intriguing. However, because her friendship was such as the narrator had never known in a woman she is a threat. Johanyak says that, Poes intellectual heroines are 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 simulate 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 Self in The Angel Over the Right Shoulder. American Literature 60.1 (1988) 42-60. Johanyak, Debra. Poesian Feminism Triumph or Tragedy. CLA Jour nal 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 brusque Mans Pudding and Rich 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.