Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Looking for literary terms found in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" within the specific paragraphs of 57 and 58 which begins with "The first thing that struck her eye..."

In paragraph fifty-seven, Hawthorne employs personification, imagery, hyperbole, and a brief catalog. Georgiana sees the furnace, and in the imagery that Hawthorne uses to describe it, he personifies it as a "hot and feverish worker." The soot that has collected above the furnace suggests it has "been burning for ages," a hyperbole, since Aylmer and Georgiana are not aged. In looking around Aylmer's laboratory, the narrator recites a catalog of all the tools and supplies Aylmer keeps there for his experiments.
In paragraph fifty-eight, Hawthorne uses a simile to describe Aylmer's appearance; he is "pale as death." Juxtaposition is found in the polarities of "immortal happiness or misery." Hawthorne also uses alliteration and consonance in the following sentence; he repeats the consonant "d" at the beginning and end of words:

He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery.

And finally, Hawthorne utilizes contrast when the narrator compares Aylmer's "pale as death" appearance with the "sanguine and joyous mien" he had put on when he was encouraging Georgiana to go along with his plan to remove her imperfection.

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