With so much required of teachers out in the world today, it would only be natural that standard documents have emerged to help keep teachers and students on the right path and up to date. For example there is an overview of the academic standards for the state of PA. This Summary of Performance Standards (PA Board of Education, 2011) is four pages long and quite easy to navigate as everything falls under a specific heading. Organized via content area, there are not really standards listed as objectives but rather as requirements demonstrating what must be met to stay in good standards.

The PA Dept of Education has also put forth more specific instructions by grade level and subject matter. Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. Elementary K- 3 (PA Dept of Education, 2011) is very detailed and goes into both the levels of needs as well as the information that students are required to achieve in the above listed subjects. Also easy to navigate, the document of 20 pages includes a table of contents so that everything can be located in a snap. With easy to follow information, this particular source makes every objective quite clear.

Finally, and also from the PA Dept of Education the Academic Standards for Mathematics. Elementary K-3 has also been published (PA Dept of Education, 2010). Once again, this is an easy to navigate document as it has clear headings, glossary, and table of content. This 30 page document sets forth everything that students are responsible for in regards to mathematics from the time they enter public school until the third grade.

Now, all of the previously mentioned documents, as well as numerous others, have clearly been in regards to educational performance standards in the state of Pennsylvania. Still, there are other connections that are not so easily distinguished.

As already mentioned all of the documents are illustrating various educational standards. They are also all available in pdf format for easy access, download, and print. Additionally, however, they also all deal with more than one specific grade level. This is extremely useful because a teacher can use one document for several years and reasons; it seriously cuts back on research time rather than having to find a separate document for each grade. They all also show a tentative future scale of where education should be headed in the event that the proper goals are achieved in due course.

Still, all of the documents are quite different in various ways. The Summary of PA Performance Standards is a broad overview for the educational system at large. The Academic Standards for Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking, Elementary K- 3, on the other hand, focuses more specifically on those areas listed within its title; being more thorough in its explanations of what is required of each student for each subject. So too, the Academic Standards for Mathematics, Elementary K-3 is the same way in that it specialized on in the math requirements for early childhood education. By having these broken down into different sections teachers can identify exactly what they are looking for without being swamped by superfluous information.

All of these documents support the educational process simply by providing information and knowledge to the teachers. If educators were unsure of what they were supposed to be teaching, the students would not be able to learn what they needed to learn, and the schools would all receive poor test scores; which would be a violation, not only to PA educational requirements but also federal laws as set for by the No Child Left Behind Act of the Bush Administration (No Child Left Behind, 2004). Ultimately, schools would be put on probation and receive ever increasing penalties, potentially even losing their accreditation. These unending cycles would virtually halt the educational process and so these documents help to bridge the gap so that teachers have the tools they need to succeed.

So, these documents are useful to teachers in that they, (1) explain the standards and goals for which a teacher is striving to reach. Additionally, (2) they set forth a time line for an educator so that he, or she, will know that she has X amount of time to cover Y amount of material, and can so plan accordingly. Finally, (3) there is a sense of confidence that can be added so that teachers know that all their students are, supposedly, on the same level when they transition from grade to grade. This will help make sure that all teachers across the state, and the nation, are on the same page.

His famous poem “Out, Out” (1916), tells a tragic story of a young man. The boy was cutting firewood with a buzz saw. After working the whole day, he was excited to finally hear his sister announce dinnertime. Accidentally, the boy loses his attention and cuts off his hand with a saw. His greatest fear is to lose his hand, so while still cautious, he begs the doctor not to cut it off. Unfortunately, poor fellow loses too much blood and dies under anesthesia. Although his death is tragic, everyone else go back to their routine work and the writer explains that they are not the ones dead, that is why.

Robert Frost uses Personification to a great extend in his poem. The main example is the buzzing saw, of course. It is described as a human being that snarls, rattles and leaps out for the boy’s hand in excitement.

Who is to blame for the accident and boy’s death? The author refuses to blame the boy for not being cautious as he is still a child at heart. Frost blames the adults for what has happened. Had they granted him an early excuse, the boy’s life could have been saved. Even a half-hour break would help him to relax and be more attentive and cautious.

Taking the time period during which this poem was written into consideration, it can be interpreted differently. Frost makes an emphasis on the boy’s passivity and innocence and draws a parallel to all the young men who had to leave their homes, grow up fast and go to War. It took a lot of innocent lives, lives of men who were still children and who did not have a chance to grow up and live a happy life.

The first part of the poem is full of elegant descriptions and metaphors, however, towards the end of the poem, Robert Frost gets detached and unemotional. The narrator is unable to find the explanation for why this happened and it seems that complete detachment is the only way to deal with the boy’s death and move on. Just as soldiers have to ignore the dead bodies of their friends on the battlefield, the people from the boy’s community have to resume what they were doing and go on with their lives accepting the tragedy and doing nothing about it.

In modern times, submarines can be used for both peacetime and wartime purposes. The continuing use of submarines are important during modern times because of the increase in the use of methods from airspace including satellites, drones, and other aircraft that are capable of attacking traditional battle fleets. In modern warfare, submarines can serve the purposes of providing surveillance, intercepting enemy communications as well as conveying messages between joint forces, and attacking enemy ships at sea as well as targets on land. In addition, the capabilities of the modern submarine to travel farther distances, remain deep under the sea for longer periods of time with the sailors on board in more comfortable, professional, and efficient surroundings, and to launch modern weaponry such as missiles and torpedoes demonstrate how this form of warfare has evolved.

Military strategy still places an emphasis on the superiority of the land and sea power of each fighting force, much like during the times about which Litzow wrote; the differences mainly revolve around the expanded role that the modernization of submarines and technology are able to play as opposed to when they were a more primitive, although successful, instrument of war.

This is illustrated by two companies in particular that have a focus upon female needs. Mirena the birth control method sold by the Bayer Health Care Pharmaceutical company and the popular tampon brand Tampax. Both companies specialize in items that only a female would use and as such they liberally sprinkle their ads with pinks and purples; pretty colors that attract the female’s eye. Additionally, they also use girls in their commercials, conveying emotions and feelings that can allow a woman to relate.

By using these methods of structural power, they are in fact increasing their sales; which are, of course, the entire point. The Bayer Company increased earnings alone by over 23.8% in the last fiscal year, (“Stockholder’s Newsletter First Quarter 2011,” 2011). So, too, did the Proctor and Gamble corporation that owns Tampax show positive results with over 13 million dollars in net earnings alone for the last year, (“Financial Summary,” 2011). All in all, a success.

Works Cited

“Financial Highlights.” Proctor & Gamble. 2010. Web. 28 Jul 2011.

“Stockholder’s Newsletter First Quarter 2011.” Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corporation. 28 Apr 2011. Web. 28 Jul 2011.

Another area that I would be interested in pursuing at the trade show which would also cater to a young population of consumers would be companies that manufacture or distribute jeans as well as other unusual outerwear, such as American Dentimatrix, CI Jeans SA, and Denim North America. I would also look into companies that might distribute unusual sorts of denim and other casual pants such as European Designs, Gianno Co. LTD., India MART.com, or Jin Chuan Apparel, Inc. I would be likely to visit the vendors for Nanjing Foreign Trade Company LTD, Rishi International, and Shanghai Chenghao Internatioanl Trade Co. LTD. My belief is that younger consumers would be extremely interested in fashion looks that come from overseas in Europe and Asia.

Personal skills that are vital to the process of developing socially include: the ability to listen to others; the ability to empathize with others; and tolerance of differences between people. These characteristics are essential for children to hone during the process of socialization, because they are skills that will determine the positive relationships they will develop academically, personally, and professionally throughout life. During Erikson’s third stage of development, learning initiative versus guilt, part of what the healthy child learns is to cooperate with others, to lead as well as to follow (Stages of Social-Emotional Development in Children and Teenagers, 2010.)

A child may be accomplished in his or her academic studies, but without the social skills that are necessary to navigate interpersonal relationships, he or she may grow up to be unfulfilled in social and emotional areas. In fact, the realm of social and emotional learning studies the connections between biology, emotions, and intelligence and their relation to success and happiness (Stern.) The education that takes place through social and emotional experiences with others boosts the child’s emotional intelligence, providing a tremendous advantage to his or her futures, both in one’s personal life and in one’s professional endeavors.

For a child to develop the qualities listed above, it is important that his or her family environment support the development of those characteristics. A family can reinforce the establishment of tolerance, empathy, and listening skills by modeling those skills at home. For example, a family that eats dinner together most nights during the week can practice listening to each member and demonstrating an understanding of what is being said by responding to that content accurately. Family members can show empathy to each other by verbally and/or physically comforting each other when difficult issues are being discussed or experienced. Finally, tolerance can be modeled by allowing differences of opinions to be expressed, accepted, and disagreed with in a respectful way. The family environment can provide a safe climate for its members to reveal their opinions, feelings, and beliefs.

In Erikson’s fourth stage of development, industry versus inferiority, during the period that he calls the school age, which can go up to and include junior high school, a child begins to achieve competence in the more formal skills of life, a significant part of which is relating to peers (Stages of Social-Emotional Development in Children and Teenagers, 2010.) This task includes learning to play or work within a system of formal rules, building skills that promote team work. The qualities that a child will develop in his or her interactions with individuals or within the family system are supported by this developmental stage.

If a family environment demonstrates the quality of intolerance to differences of opinion, for example, it may be difficult or impossible for a child to feel comfortable expressing himself, and that child may develop a tendency to criticize others who are different. In the worst-case scenarios, these children may take extreme measures of intolerance by becoming bullies, since they had no one to comfort them or empathize with them in their own family unit.

In the classroom environment, it is essential to establish a tolerant atmosphere where people feel that they are being listened to and respected, so that one particular quality that is essential to provide this is by reinforcing fellow students’ contributions by conveying verbal support or even physical support such as a pat on the back. In addition, a quality that can provide and reinforce tolerance, understanding, and listening skills would be sticking up for the “underdog,” a person who may be isolated and feel like an outcast. Finally, courtesy is an important quality for the classroom so that people feel they are respected and will in turn be respectful.

In addition, within the classroom environment, if someone exhibits a rude or a judgmental attitude towards others, the ability of other students to empathize, listen to their peers, and express tolerance will be inhibited because energy will be used to defend oneself against being attacked. Unfortunately, if this is the tone that is set in a classroom, it can result in an unsafe place where people are afraid to speak out for fear of being rejected, mocked, or seen as lesser than the others. The development of a solid base of social skills will assist an individual in becoming a stable, secure person who will reinforce those same qualities in others. On the other hand, the lack of such skills will produce an insecure person who will tend to avoid others, intimate relationships and opportunities to work with people as a team.

Rossetti’s “Blessed Damozel”

It is always tempting to apply the fact of an author’s age and circumstances to an examination of a work, particularly when, as in the case of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and “The Blessed Damozel”, the poet is a boy of eighteen. There is some justification for doing so here, despite the fact that poetry must stand apart from such considerations; everything about “The Blessed Damozel” evokes youthful excess, both in rapture and sadness, and Rossetti’s youth at the time of its composition helps to illustrate, perhaps, its insistence on transcendent love. That is to say, such an extremely romantic stance from a male demands more in the way of explanation than would a similar one from the pen of a woman of the era.

The reality is that only a very young man, artist or otherwise, feels the need to view love in so lofty a manner. Poets are, of course, notoriously driven to excess of feeling, yet even the more effusive poetry of older poets is usually tempered by a sense of pragmatism. They love and they frequently glorify the beloved, but the love itself is often earthbound. It exists in the real world, no matter the divine attributes of the beloved. Very young men, conversely, part company from their seniors at this stage of their lives, and it is a time when the masculine and feminine outlooks on romance most nearly parallel. Love, new to each, is baffling and frightening; consequently, young men and women tend to apply to it qualities larger than life.

This is the kind of almost adolescent exuberance that marks “The Blessed Damozel”, and demands it focus on love as a purely transcendent thing, possibly obtainable only as a heavenly reward for the faith kept to it. In a sense, the entire poem is something of a “balcony scene”, an analogy to the extreme romanticism of Romeo and Juliet by no means coincidental. The heroine of the title resides in a divine limbo, aware of the heaven around her and pained by the separation from her still-living lover. He, for his part, feels and senses his beloved, and both yearn for the day when his death will bring them together again. The poem is strangely both pagan and implacably Christian, as well; the damozel is attended by the celestial handmaidens of the goddess Artemis, yet her prayers go to the Virgin Mary and to Christ himself. Beyond these elements of “set”, however, the essence of the poem is resoundingly clear. If fidelity is honored, then the love between the two may be rewarded for eternity, and the transcendent quality of this love will make the long years of suffering worthwhile. Simply, transcendent love is reserved for the worthy, who are those lovers capable of enduring a lifetime of no love at all. Even so, as Rossetti’s lovers feel all too acutely, there is no assurance of this love as being realized.

Charlotte Bronte: Transcendent Love as Lost Aspiration

A somewhat more stoic, if not outright harsh, view of transcendent love is expressed throughout Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Employing the greater range of literary freedom made possible by prose, Bronte sets out a story wherein the glories of love are only minimally glimpsed, and rarely ever taken as potentially attainable. Much of the novel, in fact, is what may be termed “anti-romantic”, as it takes every opportunity to remind the reader, and the title heroine, that the world is a hard place, and that ideal love is a miraculous occurrence, at best.

This is not to say that Bronte does not actually testify to a faith in transcendent love. On the contrary, her relentless focus on the obstacles to it only serve to highlight what she evidently perceives to be its majesty. Nearly Puritanical in her rigorous virtue, Jane nonetheless does dream. The dreams are few, and she is not crushed by the loss of her dream of love with Rochester – she virtually anticipates it, so dour are her expectations – but they are nonetheless the more idealized by the contrast. Then, as with Rossetti, there is a fundamental Christianity underlying the promise of such love; only noble sacrifice on a Christ-like scale, it is felt, may entitle a weak mortal to such a paradise of feeling. So, too, is it conveyed that Christian duty must take precedence over even the most passionate stirrings of the heart and soul.

What is most compelling in Jane Eyre, in regard to the heroine’s romantic life, is her conviction of unworthiness stemming, at least in part, from her own, worldly circumstances. This is interesting, and cynical, of Bronte. That is, Jane believes in a goodness of loving beyond human measure, yet she is always acutely aware that she lacks the mortal qualities which typically generate any kind of love at all. She is poor, of no family, and plain in appearance. She has pride, because she holds to inner beliefs regarding humanity and each person’s obligations in living as a true Christian, but she has no illusions. This is most evidently illustrated when, after carefully and modestly indicating in her story the depth of her feeling for Edward Rochester, he expresses his undying love for her. Her reaction is strikingly brusque. She demands that he repeat himself in the light, that she may read the honesty of his eyes. She lists her shortcomings, offering him the opportunity to withdraw his avowal. If he is to actually meet her expectations of the transcendent, inexpressible love of the soul she herself feels, she puts him to the most rigorous testing first.

As the story unfolds and Rochester’s misery of a marriage ends their relationship, Bronte carries her view of transcendent love into even starker terrain. Jane does, at least intellectually, fully subscribe to Rochester’s argument that, in being together, they commit no sin. She is tortured because the impossible, brilliant love she neared remains, even then, at hand. Here, however, is where Bronte “raises the stakes” on transcendent love. It cannot be had through any sort of compromise at all, for to do so would render it earthly, and non-transcendent. Leaving Rochester means, for her, the end of any possible happiness for ether of them, but her Christian concept of transcendent love allows for no other action. The real beauty of the love finally given to, and accepted by, Jane is that the transcendent force of it has never been tarnished. It is more forceful, in fact, because the reader understands completely that Jane was prepared to go without it. As with Rossetti’s poem, consistent virtue may be the only reward for the pursuit of transcendent love, and all that a person may be capable of is then drawn out. For Rochester, it may well have meant a life of grim acceptance; for Jane, little beyond that. The standard of transcendent love held to, however, is what would have enabled both to meet these destinies.

Conclusion

For whatever cultural and/or artistic motivations guiding them, both Rossetti and Bronte give to the world a form of love so rarefied, its wonders are never promised. Its literary function, however, is immensely valuable. In “The Blessed Damozel” and Jane Eyre, transcendent love is employed as something of a device, and one by which the greatest range of human potentials may be tested. Rossetti and Bronte each create works in which transcendent love is presented as the pinnacle of the human connection, and the extraordinary difficulty in striving for it allows for a rich development of character and the exploring of real, human potential.

Contrasting Elements

The perceptions of the poets as vastly dissimilar are certainly valid, to an extent. There is in Dickinson always a kind of genteel touch; even the brevity of most of her poems reinforces the sense that they are quick, unlikely thoughts escaping from a soul ordinarily not usually given to overt expression. In “A Book”, for example, she appears to simply be setting down an exciting novel just long enough to compose eight lines extolling the power of literature to transport. In “Crisis is a Hair”, Dickinson ventures into nearly clinical terrain, musing on the intrinsically minute nature of her title subject. Her wide array of brief, fragmentary poems adds to this impression of an objective witness to life, rather than a sensitive participant of it. More evident than even these approaches in her work is form. Dickinson is never concerned with meter or structure, and her free-form style actually imbues her short poems with that essentially “thoughtful” aspect, in the literal sense of the word.

Conversely, Edgar Allan Poe’s poems are unabashed expressions of one man’s torments and conflicts. He rarely shies away from the role of narrator; if he has not personally experienced the anguish or joy he wishes to relate, he makes it clear that the point is moot. As a man, he seems to say, this is what all experience is, and he feels it as every man must. “Alone”, for instance, is blatantly autobiographical, and in its twenty-two lines harshly bemoans his own state as a boy doomed to being apart from normal life. Poe was, ultimately, far more drawn to revealing intensely personal experience. One of his most famous poems, “Annabel Lee”, is quite literally a song of mourning. If the title heroine is not a representation of Poe’s own love, it may as well be, so intense is the personal grief expressed. Even in his “Sonnet to Science”, which unashamedly employs archaic, poetic language to address its subject, Poe cannot remove himself from his own analysis. It is not enough, that he accuses science of stripping the world of its mystery; it has also taken from him a “summer dream”. For Poe, it invariably seems that poetry is his means of expressing profoundly personal sorrow, and occasionally joy.

Moreover, no poet employed a form more opposed to Dickinson’s random, free-form style. In reading Poe, there is a sense that meter and cadence are never enough for him, for his poems are distinctly musical. He scans and inserts internal rhyme with almost mathematical precision, as in “Annabel Lee”; the poem cannot be read, in fact, without its rhythms coming to the fore. This same, intense musicality propels what is probably Poe’s most famous poem, “The Raven”, as complex internal rhyme and repetition of phrasing carries the stanzas urgently forward. As noted, Emily Dickinson is utterly unconcerned with such effects, and she even frequently discards standard punctuation, preferring the ambiguity of dashes to finish her phrases. Even the typical brevity of a Dickinson poem seems to support this style; presented as fleeting impressions, as in the two-line “Defrauded I a Butterfly”, there is literally little to no space for an observance of traditional meter or style.

Identifications and Echoes

There are, however, certain similarities between Dickinson and Poe as striking as their differences. Poets universally seek to explore themes of life, love, nature, and all the other great concerns of humanity, and these two are no exceptions. They were, essentially, solitary people, or at least deep introspection marks the work of each. If Dickinson’s poems are less grandiose, they nonetheless indicate a restlessness of spirit, or a perpetual unease, in keeping with Poe. Introspection is translated in their separate works in ways usually redolent of sadness, or loss. If Poe suffers torment from the loss of Annabel Lee, Dickinson is unable to even venture into landscapes of love, and her sorrow is equally tragic, if different. In “I Cannot Live with You”, she defiantly expresses this pain. They come to it by different roads, but Poe and Dickinson are united in a need to cry out against their states of aloneness.

Lastly, and on a more prosaic level, Dickinson and Poe are of an age and a landscape; both were 19th century writers, and each displays, albeit in ostensibly dissimilar fashions, a uniquely American viewpoint. Dickinson seems to exult in the inherent of freedom of her country, in that she often chooses to abandon traditional poetic structure. In a very real sense, she is American in that she calls her own tune as a poet. Moreover, she takes advantage of the very American freedom of the woman to explore whatever subject intrigues her. Poe, conversely, embraces meter and form nearly maniacally. He seems to adores the florid, and resurrects styles long gone before his time. Nonetheless, he infuses them with a distinctly American energy not in keeping with more passive, gentle European models. This energy, then, is also reflective of the independent approach adopted by Dickinson.

Conclusion

In the arenas examined above, as in the more expansive one of poetic spirits expressive of personal anguish and loneliness, Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe ultimately reveal that their similarities are as defining to them as their diverse methods and subjects as poets. As artists, the quiet and proper lady from Massachusetts, Dickinson, was spiritually and artistically as one with the flamboyant, musical Edgar Allan Poe. Differences in style and theme cannot lessen the greater reality that Dickinson and Poe uniformly – and similarly – are poets who write only of their experience of the personal soul.

As far as segmentation strategies are concerned, Target goes for demographic segmentation on the basis of education, gender, and income levels. Unlike Wal-Mart which targets the low income groups, Target aims at middle income groups many of whom are college educated. According to Target, the median age of its customer is 46, median household income is $55,000, and eighty to ninety percent of Target customers are females (Target Corporation). Target seems to have succeeded in its segmentation strategy because the company has developed an image of being hip, fun, and chic in the minds of the customers who perceive Wal-Mart as a place for frugal shopper. This probably explains why Target’s customer base is primarily women who are drawn to Target’s extensive selection of trendy clothing, household, and decorative products.

Even though Target has been doing well but it can take certain steps to further strengthen its competitive position. Even though Target is known more for its product offerings rather than low prices, it’s prices are quite competitive as compared to Wal-Mart. A recent study by retail consulting firm Custom Growth Partners found out that Target’s prices are almost in line with Wal-Mart and even lower in some instances. Thus, Target should promote the low prices more so that more customers become aware of the value aspect of shopping at Target. The low prices are powerful marketing tools in tough economic times. In addition, Target donates five percent of its annual income to the communities in which it does business (Target Corporation). Target’s competitor Wal-Mart has been struggling with social image for some time thus, Target’s promotion of its social programs will give it even more goodwill as compared to Wal-Mart. Target already enjoys a better reputation than Wal-Mart when it comes to employees’ compensation. This goodwill will also reduce opposition to Target when expanding into new domestic markets unlike Wal-Mart whose expansion is often met with resistance.

Target should also target lower income groups as well as men. Marketing to men, especially by clothing and cosmetics brands has increased by a huge proportion in the last two decades. Similarly, U.S. consumers feel lower job security now than in the past which means they would become even more value conscious while still demanding quality. Target is in a great position to meet the expectations of both high quality and low prices because it already does so. Thus, Target would benefit by targeting more demographic segments and may also succeed in taking away market shares from companies like J.C. Penney and Kohl’s etc.

Hawthorne and Puritanical Terror

While any work has the right to be judged independently of its creator’s life, the reality remains that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s career as a writer cannot be extricated from his personal background, if only because he consistently infuses that background into his fiction. The practice is certainly understandable; it is hard to conceive of a more fruitful field upon which to create fiction than the tangled, disturbing legacies of Hawthorne’s native Salem, Massachusetts. In this place, and early in the nation’s history, extremely Puritanical creeds fostered communal feeling so strong that women and men were burned as witches. That Hawthorne was descended from a presiding judge at the Salem witch trials virtually confines him as an artist to exploring this unique history of evil both imagined and, quite literally, practiced.

As with his forebears, Hawthorne’s conception of evil is inextricably linked to the Puritan ideas of sin. His evil is never an intruding monster or inexplicable and horrifying visitation; it is, rather, the frightening ways in which merely the dread of evil must breed evil reaction. In The House of The Seven Gables, for example, he sets forth a dynamic as haunting and haunted as any cycle of Greek drama. The Pyncheon family, the remnants of whom are attempting to survive in the house, live every day with ghosts. The living in Hawthorne are victims of the past, and particularly of the evil in which they played no real part, a situation highlighted by Holgrave’s ongoing work on the family history. Moreover, the history of the family’s role in the witchcraft trials is by no means the only, malign legacy, for the story unfolds to reveal a kind of curse as arising from the property itself as having been stolen in the past. Evil moves in every hall of the house, yet it is all a sad and undying residue of very human action and sinful behavior.

Less blatant, but even more powerfully, The Scarlet Letter points a decisive finger at mankind as the bringer of evil, and ironically guilty of this through misguided and severely Puritanical impulses to crush it. There is a striking modernity to the book, despite an understandable ambiguity regarding sin and redemption in Hawthorne; he seems to dismiss the public outrage that brands Hester Prynne as an adulteress as an evil of itself, yet he also acknowledges the force of the sin as being felt by Hester and Arthur Dimmesdale, the father of the illegitimate Pearl. This duality notwithstanding, the evil portrayed in The Scarlet Letter is predominantly that of intolerance, for Hawthorne appears to believe that sin, or evil, is best left as a matter for those guilty of it to endure.

Poe and The Beast Within

If Nathaniel Hawthorne employed sin as his foundation for presenting evil, Edgar Allan Poe did not even venture that far. For Poe, and in an intensely personal way, evil is merely one aspect of the madness within men. This perception, then, removes an element of focus on the subject writers such as Hawthorne enjoy. That is, Hawthorne is able to step away from the nightmares he reveals, and Poe chooses, time and gain, to plunge headfirst into them.

For example, it is tempting to parallel Poe’s “The Fall of The House of Usher” with The House of the Seven Gables, as both tales center on doomed residences. The differences, however, are stark, and go directly to each author’s method of exploring evil, for the Usher house itself is seemingly organic. It is depicted as cracked from the beginning, illustrative of the twisted relationship between Roderick Usher and Madeline, his sister. Poe’s house, in fact, is unimportant, as it serves as merely another incorporation of the doomed twins. Evil occurs, certainly as Roderick chooses to bury his sister alive, yet this is no focused malice. It exists to accomplish no actual end, nefarious or otherwise; it is simply madness in motion, and from within the Usher family. The character of Roderick Usher may be said to arise again in Poe’s “The Raven”, for here too is a case of incipient evil as originating from within the hero. The raven of the title is a malevolent presence, although it essentially does nothing. What it is, in fact, is an implement; the narrator, mad in his grief over the lost Lenore, transmits every inner accusation and despair to the statue. As in so much of Poe’s work, it is the hero who generates the evil, and is most tortured by it because it stems from lunacy.

Conclusion

It is extraordinary that two American writers from the 19th century should have so presciently understood that “evil” is most pernicious when it is the result of man’s own behaviors. Hawthorne examined this through the lens of an ultra-Puritanical background and locale, while Poe chose to present evil as almost a by-product of tortured insanity. Both men, nonetheless, keep to that concept of man’s responsibility for it. Poe and Hawthorne, addressing either madness as source of evil or sin has generating it in a reactive way, consistently portray evil as a thing emanating from within mankind, and not as an external influence threatening it.