85.1k views
1 vote
5.00 Prompt Choice and Thesis Checkpoint

Write your thesis statement for this topic. Your thesis should have a subject, opinion, and reasons, and be stated in present tense. You should choose a strong ‘showing’ verb. A list of a few showing verbs choices is provided below for your reference.

Write a close analysis of either Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Birthmark”. Discuss how three different literary elements from the following list are used to enhance the story: * setting, conflict, character, symbolism, point of view, theme, tone, figurative language, foreshadowing, imagery, irony, plot. Give at least two examples from the text of each of the 3 literary elements you plan to discuss

User TALE
by
5.5k points

2 Answers

5 votes

Final answer:

To write a thesis statement for an analysis of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Birthmark", choose three different literary elements and discuss how they enhance the story by emphasizing a theme.

Step-by-step explanation:

In order to write a thesis statement for an analysis of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Birthmark", you need to choose three different literary elements from the given list and discuss how they enhance the story. Your thesis should have a subject, opinion, and reasons, and be stated in the present tense. Here's an example of a thesis statement:

The author's use of symbolism, character development, and irony in "The Birthmark" enhances the story by emphasizing the theme of human imperfection and the dangers of striving for perfection.

For each literary element, provide at least two examples from the text to support your analysis. Remember to use strong verbs that show the impact of these elements on the story.

User Paul Keen
by
4.7k points
2 votes
In “The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the symbols of the birthmark and the old man’s eye influence the plots of the stories. Through different ways, the characters in both stories feel compelled by these objects to do something. The main character, Aylmer, in “The Birth-Mark,” was obsessed with his wife’s birthmark which he saw as a flaw in her beauty, as well as a symbol of human imperfection, and tried to remove it. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator sees the old man’s eye as “evil” and holding mysterious powers which symbolizes the narrator’s deepest fear and his obsession where he chooses to destroy it. The characters’ interpretation of these things created conflict, and both stories are formed by the symbolic meanings that the characters attribute to those things. In “The Birth-Mark,” Aylmer, a natural philosopher, became obsessed with a hand shaped birthmark on his wife’s face. Being completely consumed by the notion of imperfection that graced the face of his wife, Georgiana, he attempted to remove the mark which resulted in her death. Aylmer views Georgiana’s birthmark as something more than a simple birthmark where the obsession is because he perceives it in a more symbolic way. Georgiana has often been told that the mark on her cheek is a “charm” but Aylmer does not think so where he said, “No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect, which
User OutOFTouch
by
5.3k points