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To the Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Literary Elements of the Short Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Unit One Literature from 1820 to 1864

Washington Irving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Birthmark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

The Minister’s Black Veil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Young Goodman Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 Edgar Allan Poe

Hop-Frog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

The Pit and the Pendulum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

The Masque of the Red Death . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Herman Melville . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Bartleby the Scrivener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Responding to Unit One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

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Unit Two Literature from 1865 to 1895

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Mark Twain

The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County . . . . . 187

The One-Million Pound Bank-Note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

The Private History of a Campaign That Failed . . . . . . . . 217

Bret Harte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

The Luck of Roaring Camp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

Sarah Orne Jewett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Lady Ferry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276 Ambrose Bierce

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Beyond the Wall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

The Boarded Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Hamlin Garland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Under the Lion’s Paw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

The Revolt of “Mother” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Charlotte Perkins Gilman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

The Yellow Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

Henry James . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

The Real Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363

Responding to Unit Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

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Unit Three Literature from 1896 to 1920

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396 Kate Chopin

A Respectable Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

A Pair of Silk Stockings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Desiree’s Baby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Charles Waddell Chesnutt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

The Wife of His Youth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438 Stephen Crane

The Open Boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467

The Blue Hotel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

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O’Henry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

A Retrieved Reformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

William Dean Howells . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

Editha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

Jack London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536

To Build a Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Edith Wharton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

The Reckoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

An American Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 578 Willa Cather

The Sentimentality of William Tavener . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Paul’s Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

The Sculptor’s Funeral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Responding to Unit Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630

Writing About Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 632

Glossary of Literary Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

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To The Reader

The journey begins with a rollicking gallop through colonial New York chased by a headless horseman, and ends in the 20th century with young men chasing their dreams on street cars and cross-country railway trains. Between 1820

and 1920, the scale of develop-ment in the United States was remarkable. While wave after wave of immigrants spilled into the eastern states, intrepid pio-neers were pushing the western frontier all the way to the Pacific. To those who lived through these times, it must have seemed like a relatively short dash from covered wagons and sod dug-outs to automobiles and steel skyscrapers.

Literary themes often follow closely the events in a nation’s life, and there was no shortage

of fascinating subject matter. In a hundred-year span, the country experienced the Gold Rush, the Homestead Act, the Gilded Age, and four wars. Progress, equality, materialism, and conquest were ideas explored by the century’s more thoughtful writers.

This remarkable century not only produced powerful and expressive writ-ing, it also gave birth to a new literary genre. Edgar Allan Poe is often credited with the creation of the modern short story form. He proposed that short sto-ries should be brief, unified, and readable in a single setting. Furthermore, events should be implied, not spelled out as in a novel. His own stories were atmo-spheric high-wire acts: tightly constructed, amoral tales of the supernatural.

Other 19th and early 20th century American writers created their own niche: Nathaniel Hawthorne had his moody New England Puritans, Bret Harte his

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lovable gold miners, and Willa Cather her rural Midwesterners pining for fine art and culture. Writers from this time period were apt to explore the social worlds of their characters and the very idea of “American-ness.” Later in the 20th cen-tury, writers would be attracted to themes of personal identity and alienation.

Many of the authors you will experience as you read had multiple identi-ties, leading lives as fascinating as their fiction. Individuals were captured by South Sea cannibals, fought in the bloody Civil War, survived shipwrecks, or served time in the penitentiary. Among them were diplomats, riverboat pilots, gold miners, oyster pirates, political agitators, and prominent public speakers. It is often difficult to imagine these writers settling down long enough to apply pen to paper.

American writers from the 19th century left their mark on all the short story writers who followed them. Poe’s gothic fiction inspired the darker writings of Joyce Carol Oates, just as Mark Twain’s literary tall tales were obvious forerunners to the Lake Wobegon stories of Garrison Keillor. African-American writers, especially, admire the pioneering work of Charles W. Chesnutt. Ernest Hemingway has credited Stephen Crane with his own direct, journalistic approach to storytelling as well as his realistic use of dialogue. Feminist and regionalist fiction—modes that arose in the 19th century—live on in contemporary stories.

Owing to its compression, the short story is a difficult form to master. To fully appreciate its power and beauty, a reader has to understand the literary elements that contribute to its artistry. From the basics of plot, character, and setting to the highly suggestive use of symbols, allusions, and figurative language, all the components of a story must contribute to a single tone and theme. The American Tradition draws attention to literary elements as they are used by master writers in their very best stories.

Stories written over one hundred years ago can sometimes present compre-hension stumbling blocks. Twenty-first century readers may encounter unfamiliar vocabulary and complex expressions, as well as references to unknown things, people, and events. Footnotes and vocabulary definitions are provided for items that add essential meaning or authenticity to a story, but readers should not feel compelled to stop to read each one. Often these items are best read when pre-viewing the story, or when studying it later for comprehension and analysis.

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Great literature accumulates meaning as time goes on. One of the great American poets of the 19th century, Emily Dickinson, expressed this idea poetically:

A Word is deadWhen it is said,

Some say.I say it just

Begins to liveThat day.

(“1212,” Emily Dickinson)

Putting a poet’s hopes aside, is it impor-tant to reach so far back in the American story collection when good contemporary fic-tion abounds? Yes. Critic Stephen Greenblatt believes there are moments in reading classic fiction when “we feel that someone—often someone long vanished into dust, someone who could not conceivably have known our names or conjured up our existence . . . is sending us a message.” Start reading! The message may be for you.

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Literary Elements of the Short Story

“Once upon a time” is a phrase that beckons young and old alike because it lets readers or listeners know that a story is coming. Whether it unfolds through the oral tradition, on the screen of a television, or in the pages of a book like this one, a story takes us out of our lives and helps us make sense of them at the same time.

A story can be defined simply as a telling of incidents or events. A useful definition for this book is that a story is a fictional narrative shorter than a novel. Whatever the definition, a story contains the following basic elements.

PlotSimply put, the plot of a story is what happens in it. As one old saying has it, the writer gets the hero up a tree and then gets him back down again. Also known as narrative structure, a plot usually includes causality: one event causes another, which causes another, and so on until the story ends. There are a variety of ways that stories move from beginning to end. The most common plot structure moves from exposition through rising action to a climax, followed by the resolution.

In the exposition we are introduced to the main character, or protago-nist, in his or her familiar setting—be that a neighborhood in New York City or a farm in the Salinas Valley of California. If the narrative continued describing this “normal” life, there would be no story. A problem or conflict is needed to move the story forward. The conflict may be external—perhaps between the protagonist and a family member or between the protagonist and nature; or the problem may be internal—between the protagonist’s sense of duty and her desire for freedom, for example. Complex stories often have both external and internal conflicts. As the conflict deepens, the story is propelled through the rising action to the climax, or high point. Here that bully of an aunt is confronted, the life-saving fire is started, or the inner demon is discovered. The tension of the climax is released in the resolution, or as it is sometimes called, the dénouement, a French word that literally means “untying.” In the resolution, the knot of the conflict is untied and everyone that is still alive goes on to a new “normal” existence.

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Of course, not all stories conform to the above plot structure. Some stories start at a high point in the action, employing a technique known as in media res, which means “in the midst of things.” Such stories will fill in the exposition along the way through dialogue or embedded stories. Another approach is to tell the ending first and fill in the rest through flashbacks, one effect of which is to make the reader pay close attention to motives and causes. Whatever the plot structure, you can be sure that there will be a prob-lem and a character to confront it.

CharacterReaders keep turning the pages of stories mainly because they are interested in what happens to the characters. Called characterization, the development of believable characters is perhaps the most basic task of the author. But writers have many tools at their disposal. Besides direct description of a character’s traits, the author can also reveal character through actions, speeches, thoughts, feelings, and interactions with others. Depending on the type of story being told and the stylistic tradition the author is working in, characters may be fully drawn and realistic or they may be representative character types. How important they are to the story determines whether they are main or primary characters, secondary characters, or minor characters. The more crucial the character is to the plot, the more he or she will be developed by the author. Even in stories that stress realism, some minor characters might only be pres-ent as types rather than as individuals.

Another important part of characterization is point of view, or the eyes through which the story is told. This is determined through the author’s choice of narrator. There are three main narrative points of view: first person, third person limited, and third person omniscient. In the first person or “I” point of view, the narrator tells his or her own story as Huck does in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The third person limited narrator is a character in the story and only sees, hears, and knows what that character could see, hear, and know. This means that he or she might only have partial knowledge and understanding of the events and other characters. Doctor Watson of the Sherlock Holmes tales is a good example of this type of narrator. Often this limited point of view is that of the major character or protagonist, but some-

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times the author chooses to tell the story from the limited point of view of a secondary character.

The third person omniscient narrator sees all and is able to comment on any aspect of the story because the narrator is an outsider, not a character in the story. Readers often like to equate the omniscient narrator with the author, but it is good to remember that any narrator or point of view is a care-fully developed tool and not simply the author’s voice. Some stories switch back and forth between various points of view.

Setting

The setting includes the time period and location in which a story takes place. In addition to its historical details and scenery, a setting must take into account the cultural conditions, or customs and manners, of the people in this time and place. Some settings are neutral—like plain black curtains in a bare theater produc-tion. But most of the time the setting is integral to the plot, influencing character, action, theme, and mood. The setting can also function as a symbol or even be personified to make it a kind of character in the fiction. This technique is typical of conflicts in which humans are pitted against nature. In this case, the environment is almost always depicted as frightening and antagonistic. Any story that portrays an angry sea or a foreboding forest is using the setting as a character.

ThemeThe theme is the underlying meaning or message of a story. A story may evoke more than one theme, depending upon your interpretation of the nar-rative. For example, a story in which a character struggles with a decision to lead a conventional life or seek freedom and adventure could be interpreted several ways. One person might summarize the theme of the story as “rash behavior leads to ruin” whereas another might say “it is better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.” Whatever theme you might come up with for a story, it is important to realize that the theme statement is not the story. Authors usually don’t write stories with a theme in mind. They might get an idea from a news item which gives them an idea for a character. Once the character is alive on the page, the character may take the story into places the author never dreamed. And that is the point, after all. We read stories so that they will take us to places we have never been before. Have a good trip.

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Unit One Literature from 1820 to 1864

FALLS AT CATSKILL, Thomas Cole

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Developing a National LiteratureThe writers in Unit One, beginning with Washington Irving and ending with Herman Melville, are considered among the most important in all of American literature. Irving was the first American to be admired abroad due to his roguish characters and amiable depiction of old New York; and he, along with Hawthorne, Poe, and Melville have inspired and influenced every American writer since that time.

Before Washington Irving, England provided Americans with most of their reading material. Ironically, for a newly freed colony, most Americans did not deem an American writer important until England declared him so. The Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote the classic treatise Democracy in America (1835, 1840), was blunt: “The inhabitants of the United States have . . . properly speaking, no literature.”

After the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Americans were eager to assert their own national identity. Commentators called on American writ-ers to cease being “secondhand Englishmen” and to capture the authentic America in their fiction.

Social and Economic ChangesWhat did it mean to be an American during the period of 1820 to 1865?

These were years of astonishing growth and change. Americans were pushing westward, driven by the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny—a belief in their God-given right to expand the country’s borders to the Pacific Ocean and to exert social and economic control throughout North America.

With the advent of the Industrial Age, stunning technological changes took place, affecting the way Americans viewed themselves as well as the rest of the world. As train tracks began to connect more towns, travel by stagecoach and horseback diminished, and with the invention of steamboats, cross-Atlantic travel became easier. Steam-powered printing presses spurred the boom in the periodical and gift book markets, providing writers with burgeoning new audiences. Even something as simple as an inexpensive postage stamp was a wondrous development.

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These advances in travel and communication all ripened conditions for American writers to connect with each other and to get more of their work published. Nevertheless, writers of serious fiction found it almost impossible to make a living by their pen alone. American publishers much preferred English writers—not for content but for business reasons. Differing copyright laws between the two countries meant that U.S. publishers could profit more by “pirating” and printing the work of English writers as opposed to paying royalties to American authors.

TranscendentalismAnother significant development in the 19th century was the movement known as Transcendentalism. The philosophy of Transcendentalism was based in the belief that wisdom came from within; that there was something that transcended external experience. Its adherents—writers and philosophers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Margaret Fuller—were free-thinking individualists, with an affinity for nature and a credo of self-sufficiency. Many were abolitionists, whose eloquent denunciations of slavery helped to hasten its end.

Writers Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville were keenly aware of the Transcendentalists’ ideas and shared their concern that America, a coun-try founded on ideals of freedom and justice, should not engage in slavery and genocide against African-Americans and Native Americans. Melville was particularly horrified by slavery, calling it “man’s foulest crime.” By the end of this period, the Mexican-American War (1846–1848) and the Civil War (1861–1865) would further challenge America’s idealistic heritage.

RomanticismThe period from 1820 to 1865 is generally considered the Romantic period in American letters, mirroring what was happening in literature and the arts in Europe. The Romantics valued the individual and intuition over society’s rules and logic: The literary imagination was freed to include dreams and the supernatural, often in highly expressive language.

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Edgar Allan Poe believed that a short story was the link between poetry and longer prose and so should be full of “poetic suggestion.” The writing of this time was highly figurative—full of symbols and metaphors—with allusions to Scripture, myth, Shakespeare, and other classics known to most readers of the day. Writers used allegories and parables, “moralistic” literary forms their readers were comfortable with from folktales and the Bible. Fictional charac-ters were often stand-ins for ideas, not the psychologically complex characters that would come later in the century.

All the same, Hawthorne began to explore the inner life of his characters. Mining New England Puritan history, he described the hysterical atmosphere of prejudice and persecution in the Salem witchcraft trials. In fact, much of what America knows today about the Puritans comes to us from his stories and novels. Poe derided the moral concerns of Hawthorne, firmly believing that the “job” of literature was not to provide a moral lesson. Nevertheless, his obses-sion with human arrogance, death, and depravity were themes that had much in common with his fellow mid-century writers. Melville considered Hawthorne the first American writer to truly represent the American spirit, finding a soul mate in his pessimistic predecessor.

Though all of these writers are known for other literary forms—novels, poetry, history, and literary criticism—the short stories included here repre-sent some of their finest writing.

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An American Master

Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804–1864

Nathaniel Hawthorne set his classic novels The Scarlet Letter (1850) and The House of the Seven Gables (1851) in Puritan New England, shaping many of our present-day impres-sions of our Puritan ancestors. Notable for his rich use of allegory and symbolism, he explored many of the themes familiar to the Romantic period: spirituality, imagination, intellectual pride, and human beings’ attrac-tion to the forbidden.

Hawthorne was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts, to a distinguished family with a dark legacy. His ancestor William Hathorne (the original spelling of the family name) had participated in the per-secution of Quakers, and William’s son John

Hathorn served as a judge in the notorious Salem witch trials. The trials resulted in nineteen deaths by hanging and scores more citizens wrongfully prosecuted for practicing witchcraft.

When Nathaniel was only four, his father, a sea captain, died of yellow fever. His mother was forced to turn to well-off relations for support. A baseball injury kept him out of school for three years and, isolated from playmates, he became scholarly and introspective. This pleased his mother and sisters, who did not wish him to go to sea like his father.

But Salem, with its Puritan heritage and practical values, was not an agree-able place for the bookish and imaginative young man. When his family moved to Maine to stay among relatives, Hawthorne was delighted. The north woods enchanted him and further encouraged his lifelong habit of solitude. He spent happy days rambling, fishing, and shooting for game.

After graduation from Bowdoin College in 1825, Hawthorne returned to his family’s home and devoted himself to his writing. His creative breakthrough came when he learned about his ancestors’ persecution of the Quakers and alleged witches. Hawthorne could not understand how good men of faith could

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have been caught up in such bigotry and violence. His obsession with these crimes, combined with his love of colonial history, gave him a wealth of ideas to explore in his fiction.

In 1828 the author began to publish sketches and short stories anonymously, and in 1837, these pieces were published together as Twice-Told Tales. The col-lection was enthusiastically reviewed in England and America—most notably by Edgar Allan Poe, who used Hawthorne’s tales as the basis of his own literary theories.

The success of Twice-Told Tales brought Hawthorne out of isolation. He even found romance—marrying the invalid Sophia Peabody in 1839. Since his writing could not support the young couple, he took a job measuring salt and coal in the Boston Custom House.

In 1841, Hawthorne went to live at Brook Farm, a famous utopian experi-ment that attracted other artists and writers. But he was not attuned to the lofty idealism of the others, and soon left, determined to support himself by his writing. He and his family moved to Concord, where he became friends with the famous Transcendentalist writers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Inspired perhaps by his famous neighbors, he composed about twenty stories in only three years and published them in a highly praised collection, Mosses from an Old Manse.

His next book was The Scarlet Letter, which began life as a short story. Profoundly complex, it was also a popular triumph, selling 2,000 copies in ten days. For the first time, Hawthorne knew commercial as well as critical success.

After moving to Lenox, Massachusetts, he became friends with other cel-ebrated writers, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, the poet James Russell Lowell, and Herman Melville, whose novel Moby-Dick is dedicated to Hawthorne. During this period, he finished The House of the Seven Gables, in which he again reflected upon his Puritan heritage.

Hawthorne’s funeral in 1864 was attended by the most prominent literary figures of the day, Longfellow, Emerson, Lowell, and the poet John Greenleaf Whittier. One eulogist said Hawthorne “had done more justice than any other to the shades of life, shown a sympathy with the crime in our natures, and, like Jesus, was the friend of sinners.” It was a fitting tribute to a writer whose fiction puzzled over the moral crimes of America’s early Puritans.

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Building Background Hawthorne on Science

The 19th century—often called the Industrial Age—was a period of amazing technological advancement. Some of the life-changing inven-tions included the steamboat, passenger railroad, electric telegraph, power-press, and power-loom, as well as anaesthesia, photography, and the use of the spectroscope for astronomy. Perceptive authors such as Hawthorne (in “The Birthmark” and other stories) and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein) began to raise questions in their fiction about scientific hubris (arrogance) and the wisdom of trusting too much in science. Though they were

not against progress, they believed that there were limits to human perfectibility, not to men-tion moral issues involved when humans “played God.” Only the naïve, or ethically challenged, could believe that all scientific inquiry would have favorable results. The promises of the modern biomedical revolution—gene splicing, cloning, life extension—are just as revolutionary, if not more so, than the achievements of the Industrial Age. Now, as then, some people suspect that science is blindly forging ahead, trying to unlock nature’s secrets and usurp the power of the Creator.

Literary Lens Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing refers to hints or clues about what will happen later in the plot. Note the differ-ent ways that Hawthorne foreshadows the ending of this story.

Before Reading The Birthmark

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n the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an emi-nent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the com-paratively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment1 in pursuits

TheBirthmark

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

I

1 aliment: sustenance; something that gives support, endurance, or strength

affinity: kinship; attraction

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which, as some of their ardent votaries2 believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own.

Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remark-able consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke.

“Georgiana,” said he, “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?”

“No, indeed,” said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his man-ner, she blushed deeply. “To tell the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.”

“Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.”

“Shocks you, my husband!” cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. “Then why did you take me from my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks you!”

To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of Georgiana’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of complexion—a healthy though delicate bloom—the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually become more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting emotion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed as almost fearful dis-tinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana’s lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all

Nathaniel Hawthorne

2 votaries: admirers

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hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of press-ing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious persons—but they were exclusively of her own sex—affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers3 to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of the matter before—Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself.

Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy’s self could have found aught else to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now steal-ing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her produc-tions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible4 grip in which morality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liabil-ity to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer’s sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.

At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife’s

fastidious: squeamish; dainty

semblance: look; appearance

He found this one

defect grow more and

more intolerable with

every moment of their

united lives.

The Birthmark

3 Eve of Powers: a reference to a statue of the Biblical Eve by American sculptor Hiram Powers (1805–1873)

4 ineludible: inescapable, unavoidable

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face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flicker-ing with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain5 have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bas-relief 6 of ruby on the whitest marble.

Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife’s cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject.

“Do you remember, my dear Aylmer,” said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, “have you any recollection of a dream last night about this odious hand?”

“None! none whatever!” replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his emotion, “I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy.”

5 fain: rather

6 bas-relief: a raised surface

JAMES PEALE, Charles Willson Peale, 1822

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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“And did you dream of it?” continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. “A terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one expression?—‘It is in her heart now; we must have it out!’ Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall that dream.”

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however, her hus-band was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away.

When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in his wife’s presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace.

“Aylmer,” resumed Georgiana, solemnly, “I know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm grip of this little hand which was laid upon me before I came into the world?”

“Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject,” hastily interrupted Aylmer. “I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal.”

“If there be the remotest possibility of it,” continued Georgiana, “let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,—life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?”

“Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,” cried Aylmer, rapturously, “doubt not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest thought—thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself.

tyrannizing: dictating; bullying

The Birthmark

inexorably: relentlessly

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After Reading The Birthmark

Discussing the Story

1. The birthmark is the most important symbol in the story. Explain what you think it represents to Aylmer and to the author. What does it represent to you?

2. Which does Aylmer love more—science or Georgiana? Find evidence in the story to support your answer.

3. Georgiana reads about some of Aylmer’s scientific failures in his journal. How does this affect her feelings for him?

4. Discuss the role of Aminadab in the story. Would the story be as clear or effective if Hawthorne had not included this character? Explain your answer.

5. Hawthorne compares the fading of the birthmark from Georgiana’s face to the fad-ing of a rainbow from the sky. Discuss the possible message in such a comparison. Why is the mark’s disappearance “more awful” than its presence?

6. Although Aylmer carries out the experiment, what role does Georgiana play in her

own death? Explain what you think Hawthorne’s theme is.

Literary Lens

Hawthorne uses foreshadowing throughout the story to help the reader predict how it will end. Point out as many examples of foreshadowing as you can find.

Using Foreshadowing in Writing

Write a new ending for the story in which Georgiana’s birthmark fades but she does not die. Provide examples of foreshadowing to prepare the reader for the ending of your story. Does the new ending retain the story’s moral, or message? If not, say what messages the new version conveys.

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Responding to Unit One

Understanding Literary Movements 1. In the fiction of Romantic writers, allegory and symbolism are used frequently, and

morality is often addressed in an obvious way. Choose a story in Unit One and decide how it fits the definition of Romantic writing. Use evidence from the text to support your view.

2. Many Romantic authors were drawn to gothic writing, a literary style that uses gro-tesque imagery and morbid settings in narratives of horror and the supernatural. Based on the situations and imagery used, decide which stories in Unit One are gothic, and explain the reasons for your choices.

Reviewing Literary Elements Character 1. An enigma is something mysterious and difficult to explain. All of the stories in this

unit have characters who often act in enigmatic ways. Find one of their mysterious actions or statements in the stories, and explain what you think it could mean.

2. Who is your favorite character in Unit One? List three qualities of this character along with passages from the story that illustrate each quality.

Plot 3. In fiction, the mysterious stranger is a basic ingredient of many plots. In the tradi-

tional form, a mysterious stranger appears in the life of an individual or a community, and everyone is affected as a result. Examine “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” or “Bartleby the Scrivener” and explain how the conven-tion of the mysterious stranger is employed.

Setting 4. Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe create a particular mood, or atmosphere, through the

use of setting details. Use a chart like the one below to trace clues that help readers understand the desired mood. An example has been done for you.

Story Title Setting Detail Mood Created

“Young Goodman Brown” “dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest”

foreboding, danger

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5. In some stories, the settings are used symbolically; that is, they represent more than just the place and time of the actions of the story. Which stories in Unit One have settings that also serve as symbols? Describe what these settings symbolize for each story.

Theme 6. Hubris, or the character trait of arrogance, is a theme that comes up repeatedly in

Unit One. How is this idea demonstrated in these stories? Discuss why it might pre-occupy the writers of this time period.

7. The stories in this unit all have the theme of persecution. In your opinion, which story evokes the most pathos, or misery? Give reasons for your answer.

Other Elements 8. Conflict simply put means “trouble.” Without trouble, there is usually no story.

Choose one of the stories in Unit One and trace the ways in which the author introduces, develops, and resolves the conflict. At what point in the story does it feel like the conflict could go either way, that is, the protagonist could “win” or “lose” the battle to get what he or she wants?

Writing About Literature An Analytical Response 1. Poe believed that good short stories require a single, unifying effect. Using Poe’s stan-

dard of unity, evaluate one of the stories in Unit One. How do the dialogue, descrip-tion, incidents, and images all contribute to the effect of the story? Decide if anything could be cut without diminishing the story’s impact.

A Personal Response 2. Choose one of the following characters and explain this person’s actions. In your

opinion, what motivates the character to act the way he does: the minister in “The Minister’s Black Veil,” the king in “Hop-Frog,” Bartleby or Bartleby’s employer in “Bartleby the Scrivener”?

A Creative Response 3. As one of the characters in Unit One, write a personal diary for the time period of

the story. Provide more information than we get in the story about the “real” you. Avoid using contemporary attitudes, lingo, or other details that would show you live in the 21st century.

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Writing About Literature

“The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose.”Margaret Atwood

Almost everyone has a response after reading a story or poem or attending a play. Works of literature are meant to provoke an effect. Sometimes the effect is a fizzle, and sometimes it’s volcanic—powerful enough to change a person’s life.

Good literature expresses common experiences and emotions and universal truths. It raises important questions—ones it prefers you answer yourself. You may enjoy a story and appreciate the emotions it brings forth, but you shouldn’t expect to

understand it without asking a few questions of your own. Consider it a dialogue.

Reading CreativelyReading is more than appreciating the “rare flavor” of a literary work. Like writing, reading is a creative process. As a reader, you help create the meaning of a literary work. Because each reader brings personal meanings to a story, poem, or play affects different readers in different ways. No work has a single, correct meaning. Instead, the meaning grows out of the relationship between the writer’s words and each reader’s

response.

What Affects a Reader’s Response to Literature• Individual characteristics—such as age, gender, and personality

• Cultural or ethnic origins, attitudes, and customs

• Personal opinions, beliefs, and values

• Life experiences and general knowledge

• Knowledge of literature and literary genres

• Knowledge of the historical and cultural context of a work

• Reading and language skills

All of these sources combine to affect your response to anything you read. Who you are, where you live, and what your life has been like so far may enable you to iden-tify with a character, situation, or feeling in a work. When you identify with characters, you put yourself in their shoes; you see what they see and feel what they feel. The more closely you can identify with characters, the more enjoyment and meaning you may find in reading and writing about a literary work.

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It’s important to remember, however, that reading is a process of interpretation within an acceptable range. You can’t say, willy-nilly, that a story means whatever you want it to mean.

Personal Response StrategiesIf you own your own book, mark it up while you are reading. In order to note your first impressions, underline and highlight any words or passages that excite your interest in some way. Feel free to write in the margins as well. Briefly note any questions you have, things you are reminded of, or short points that you want to explore later. This marked-up text can be a valuable blueprint for the beginnings of your literary analysis.

Keep a reading journal. Use it to answer questions such as the following:

• Which character do you identify with most closely? Why? Do other charac-ters remind you of people you know? If so, how?

• How does the work make you feel? Why?

• If you were a character in the work, would you have behaved differently? What behaviors in the story puzzle you?

• What experiences from your own life came to your mind as you read this work? How did you feel about those experiences?

Conclude with a personal response statement in which you summarize what the work means to you.

In small discussion groups, share your responses to the work. As you listen to your classmates’ reactions, refine your ideas. Afterward, write freely about how your

ideas have evolved.

Responding from Literary KnowledgeAs a reader, you not only respond to each work on the basis of your past experience and background, but you also apply your knowledge of other stories, poems, or plays that you have read. Through reading, you develop a deeper understanding of the char-acteristics that distinguish each genre. This knowledge helps you interpret a work and appreciate a writer’s skill. When you respond to literature on the basis of your literary knowledge, you analyze its elements.

For a quick review of literary elements, see the Glossary of Literary Terms, pages 651–654.

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The elements of each genre contribute to the meaning of a work. The following

list of questions can help you explore the meaning of a piece of literature.

Plot• What actions happen?

• How does each event affect the main characters?

• What conflicts occur? What is their source?

• How do the events connect to each other and to the whole?

• What do the climax and the ending reveal about the theme?

• Is the story told in chronological order, or are there flashbacks or flash forwards? If it is not told chronologically, what is the effect of its order on your response to the action?

• What foreshadowing did you detect when reading the story the first time? When you reread it?

• How does the writer’s decision to omit showing some events help to deter-mine the focus of the story?

• Do you detect a formula in this plot or is it unpredictable?

• Would you characterize the story’s ending as happy, unhappy, or something in between?

Setting• What does the setting contribute to the story?

• How does the setting define the characters?

• What setting details are important in the development of the plot?

• How does the setting relate to the story’s theme?

• Are scene shifts meaningful?

• Is the setting symbolic of something else? Pay attention to time, place, and atmosphere, especially.

• Is the setting antagonistic to the characters—part of the conflict?

• Could this story be set anywhere else? How would it be changed by a dif-ferent setting?

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Characters• Who are the principal people in the story and how do they interact? Who

are the minor characters, and what do they contribute to the work?

• What do their words, thoughts, and actions reveal about their personalities and motivations as well as the personalities of others?

• How does each character contribute to the development of the plot? Who is the protagonist and who is the antagonist?

• How do the characters relate to their setting?

• Are the characters symbolic—do they seem to stand for something in addi-tion to themselves?

• How does the writer reveal character—for instance, by explicit comment or by letting us see the character in action? Does the writer use names, physical conditions, or family histories to convey character traits?

• Do the characters seem true-to-life? Or do they seem like stand-ins for ideas?

• Are they round (three-dimensional and capable of change)? Flat (two-dimen-sional and incapable of change)? Or are they stock characters—stereotypes such as the Mad Scientist, Town Drunk, or Computer Geek?

• With which characters do you sympathize? Does your response to them change over the course of the story? If so, what causes the change?

• Do the characters speak alike or differently? How would you characterize their speech—is it formal or informal? Does it reflect their geographical origins, education, or class status?

Point of View• Who tells the story? Is the narrator a character, or does the narrator stand

completely outside the world of the characters in the story?

• What kind of person is he or she? Is this person reliable, or does he or she appear to be too emotional, mentally unstable, naïve, ignorant, or biased to be trusted?

• Why do you think the writer chose to have this character tell the story?

• How does the story’s point of view affect the characterizations? How much does the narrator really know?

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• Does the author comment on the story?

• How would the story’s effect be similar or different if someone else were

the narrator?

Theme• What is the theme, or underlying meaning, of the story? Is it stated explicitly

or developed through some other element?

• What story elements contribute to the meaning?

• What passages and details in the story best express the main theme?

• What does the point of view contribute to the theme?

• How does the author communicate the theme through the development of setting, characters, and plot?

• What else have you read that has a similar theme?

• Does the theme challenge your values or reinforce them?

Language• What is the significance of the story’s title? Does it suggest anything about

the plot, characters, setting, overall theme, or tone? Can you think of a bet-ter title?

• Are there motifs—repeated words and images—that recur throughout the story? What special meaning do they take on?

• How does the writer’s language affect the story’s tone? How would you characterize its overall effect—light-hearted, mysterious, sentimental, ironic, or objective?

• What symbols, if any, appear in the story? What do they stand for and how do they add to your understanding of the story?

• How would you describe the word choice—formal or informal? Colorful or plain? Are the sentences characteristically long and complex, or short and concise?

• What kinds of imagery and figurative language does the author use, if any? Can you find figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, and personifica-

tion? How do they contribute to the unity of the work?

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Criteria for Quality Secondary Sources

TimelinessIs the information in this source outdated?

Completeness/Accuracy Does this source cover the topic thoroughly?

How does information in this source compare to other sources on this topic?

Bias Is this source objective?

Does the source stand to profit from taking this position?

Does this source include only evidence favorable to one side of a controversy?

Does this source reflect the views of a particular time in history, such as empire-builders’ attitudes toward native peoples?

Credibility What evidence do I have that this source is knowledgeable and believable? • academic or professional credentials • documentation, such as lists of references • recognition as an authority

Additional EvidenceIf you have difficulty drafting your literary analysis, you may not have enough evidence to support your thesis statement. Go back to the story and look for evidence you may have missed. Review your note cards or create additional cards to support your thesis.

After completing your first draft, set it aside for a day or two so that you can return to it with a critical eye. You may want to share your literary analysis with a peer reader. Using your partner’s comments and the following checklist, you should

then revise your essay.

Revision ChecklistChecking for Content

• Do you have a strong introduction that identifies the author and the work you will discuss?

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allegory a literary work in which characters, objects, and events stand for abstract qualities outside the story such as goodness, pleasure, or evil

allusion a reference to an artistic, historical, or literary figure, work, or event

analogy a description of an unfamiliar thing made by comparing it to something more familiar

anecdote a short incident or story that illustrates a point; anecdotal stories usually have an informal storyteller’s tone

antagonist a character who opposes the hero or main character of the story

anti-hero a protagonist who displays traits opposite to the qualities usually associated with a traditional hero

aphorism a saying that teaches a lesson

appeal to emotion a persuasive technique that encourages others to act based on emotions rather than facts; see also propaganda

archetype an image, character, symbol, plot, or other literary device that appears frequently enough in myths, folktales, and other literary works so as to become an important part of a culture

character a person or animal in a story

characterization the manner in which an author creates and develops a character utilizing exposition, dialogue, and action

climax the high point of a plot; sometimes coincides with the turning point or defining moment; some stories do not have a clear climax

coincidence when significant events happen simultaneously

colloquialism a local or regional expression

conflict the struggle between opposing forces; external conflict involves an outer force such as nature or another character, while internal conflict exists inside a person, say between a hero’s sense of duty and desire for freedom

connotation the emotional associations surrounding a word

denotation the dictionary definition of a word

dénouement literally “the untying”; the part of a plot in which the conflict is “untied” or resolved; usually follows the climax

dialect the way in which people from a certain region or group speak that differs from standard pronunciation

dialogue conversation between characters in a literary work

epiphany an event, sometimes mystical in nature, in which a character changes in profound ways due to the revelation of a simple yet powerful truth; also sometimes called a defining moment, moment of clarity, or moment of truth

eulogy a formal expression of praise, usually about the dead

existentialism a philosophy that stresses a person’s free will and responsibility for his or her actions

exposition information or background that is directly conveyed or explained, usually by the narrator

fable a short story or tale that demonstrates a moral or truth; frequently contains fantasy elements such as talking animal characters

Glossary of Literary Terms