Comparison Of Eye Of The Beholder And The Birthmark

Both “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “Eye of the Beholder” by Rod Serling are both short stories that introduce two young, beautiful women who, despite their beauty, are castigated by positions of power for their uniqueness. While Hawthorne uses symbolism and third person omniscient storytelling to create an allegory in which perfection among the common is what’s desired by its characters, Serling tells of a world in which the thing that’s unacceptable by society’s standards is non uniformity. However, each author suggests that society’s obsession with supremacy and unattainable standards of beauty results only in the conflict and segregation of peoples.

In "The Birthmark", Hawthorne uses 3rd person omniscient to supply the audience with a fable-like, allegory style story. The very nature of the All Knowing storyteller implies a God-like moral/message. Georgiana is beautiful to all expect Aylmer, her husband, who becomes obsessed with her physical imperfection and interprets it as impure. And yet, it is what makes her unique and identifiable. “Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand.” With such a quotation, one thinks of the Hand of God, as if it is the only thing marking her as human on an otherwise perfect human being. Hawthorne uses irony by making the thing that Aylmer believes will “cure” his wife of her (impurity, sickness, sin) the thing that kills her.
If we were in her situation, we'd be terrified because we would have internalized that particular society's standards of beauty. The reversed standards of beauty is a storytelling technique used to enhance and at the same time disguise the moral