Compare and Contrast Essay Sample on the Works of Hawthorne and Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe fall under the mythical and romantic genre writers from the nineteenth-century literature. The two dark romantics' authors of literal employed techniques like imagery, symbolism, and the role of nature in their characters. Poe's and Hawthorne's work makes independent exploration of the dark side of nature and situations revealing the impact of these aspects to the real school of thought in the American Puritan. Their entire literature contributes to the making of comparative analysis of the psychological effects of the supernatural and mysterious happenings in human life. They use the perspectives of dark and light, good and bad, guilt and sin as well as sanity and disorder of the human psyche. Although the works of Hawthorne and Poe have so many similarities on their romanticism exploration of unexpected twists of the darkness of their stories, distinct difference emerge on the various aspects they cast their writing which include writing style, subject matter, target audience as well as the reflection of their contribution to modern writing genre. It's against this hypothesis that this paper will compare and contrast the compositions of the works of Hawthorne and Poe.

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In his writing, Poe emphasizes story writing using single effect technique to allow his audience the authority to imagine and make self-evaluation of the characters' traits. Contrary, Hawthorne was precise on the details probing his stories development. From this argument, we can say that Poe made definitions in his writings while Hawthorne introduced concepts around his writings. As evident in Unit 6 class note, author's communication skills to his audience gives a lot of credit to the categorization of any critical workpiece. The uncertainty of events revolving around an author's times portrays his experience with reality and philosophical beliefs. Therefore, the works of Poe and Hawthorne revolve around romantic and gothic literature in the post-revolutionary America showing the situations of their times.

The works of Poe and Hawthorne had significant similarities on the techniques used to communicate to the subject readers. The use of symbolism predominated in both writers as they sought to explore the light and dark representations of scenarios. Poe makes a constructive contrast of life and death in his narration using symbolic illustration to show the difference of the darkness of a setting. For instance, in "The Masque of the Red Death" Poe defines a distinct representation of light and dark forms. He talks of the illuminating fire flames' patterns on the walls as a symbolic representation of light in a black room. Consequently, the signification of light and dark showed in Hawthorne's short story, "The Minister's Black Veil," where represented by the black veil worn by Mr. Hooper symbolizes his sins. Though these two authors use the symbolic representation of light and dark to show the contrast of the life situations their characters find themselves, the technique used is different. Poe is quick to point out symbolic representation of the unusual circumstances of the plot while Hawthorne uses metaphors to show symbolism. Therefore, its swift to compare how both authors use common writing styles to deliver their message to the readers. The contrast in their use of different writing techniques on the plot and characterization shows representation of symbolism, metaphor, and authorial intrusion gives and similar contribution to American literature.

The primary theme in the majority of Hawthorne's and Poe's writings revolves around the cats of societal moral lessons in the bid to understand the human nature. The use of fictional works to present moral allegories and psychological themes has seen the success in the representation of Hawthorne and Poe in puritan inspiration in romantic and gothic literature. The focus on psychological subject matters used by Hawthorne and Poe show the negative antiphons towards transcendental engagements. To demonstrate the fictional representation of life bot Poe and Hawthorne used supernatural characters to convey their message to their audience. Although the use of fiction and imagery representation to show social odds is common in both writers work, Hawthorne's writings capitalize on the use of figurative representation. In his focus on allegory, Hawthorne uses symbolic and metaphor descriptions of the subjects, objects, and situations. On the other hand, Poe uses critical works to present the central point of the condition affecting his characters and exploration of the settings. Hence significant differences show how the two authors offer their moralistic narrations. Hawthorne explores the dark soul of his characters to portray what he refers to as the truth of the human heart while Poe explores this dark side of human life in a psyche representation. These differences in the description of human experiences show the two authors approach to life.

The use of the symbols and metaphors to show the representation of characters and settings, as used by Poe and Hawthorne develop the purpose and function of specific aspects in real life situations. These writing styles help the reader to have insight into the writers' world. The communication of folk narratives ensures continuity of different forms of myths to show the revolutionary development of language and writing techniques. For instance, in Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher" and Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" develops on the readers' insight on the categorization of societal perception of black and white. In both books, imagery is richly applied to signify modern forms of proper situations with the dark reality that was previously untold by their predecessors. The narration of the different stories from both authors shows different themes as they revealed their writing techniques. The application of the subject is contrasting between dream and reality; both authors explain the connection between illusion, fantasy, and vision against the unbent fact. In their writing, both Poe and Hawthorne take their audience around fictional situations that the characters perceive in the bid to unearth their personality. Poe points out the inner self of his characters using his authorial intrusion to define the circumstances that characterize the players in most of his literature. On the other hand, Hawthorne uses imagery and other symbolic features to show the inner character of his subjects. The contrast in both cases indicates the unrealistic representation of life situations that subject human beings to a supernatural understanding of the circumstances.

Both writers capitalize on the role of the narrator in their writing to communicate with their audience. The narrator presents a neutral ground on the real situations of the setting and characters in Poe and Hawthorne's literature. The high level of vocabulary and language used by both writers show the category of elite audience targeted by their writing. The choice of words and their connotations brings out the intended meaning to command excellent use of English language. The purpose of the unexplained genre in Hawthorne's romantic writing helps communicate to the human heart on the inventible representation of good and evil in life in a gothic mood. Moreover, Poe's explicit description of defined nature of life contrasts between dark and light yields futility evidence in his effort to condemn social ills in the mind of his audience. Both writers are targeting to revert the human wickedness and righteousness as a brainstormed irony to differentiate between good and evil in the surroundings of the plot and characterization they forcibly enter as a representation of human life. When communicating with their audience, the two authors apply strong literature styles to reveal the universal truth about the human heart. Hawthorne tries to discover the underneath reality of the human spirit against everyday odds while Poe critique the human heart in the representation of beliefs and cause of actions. Therefore, both authors broaden the reader's horizon by creating vivid interest in the real truth concerning the human nature and character.

The use of innovative thinking and experimentations in language presentation, Hawthorne and Poe changed the advanced position of appreciating literature developing on the modern use of writing techniques in American English. Modern writing genre has borrowed significant elements on the use and application of writing styles engineered by Poe and Hawthorne for romantic and gothic writing. These techniques include language, categorization, symbolism, theme, and the target definition. Understanding the influences of the authors' literacy movement and writing techniques help to apply the impact of their work to the modern emerging genre. The reflection on how Hawthorne and Poe explored romantics to portray the beauty of live, transcendental movements in literature place significant value on the human nature and idealism of reality. Poe and Hawthorne's works accredit for new genre invention in horror and fact-finding stories, making their literary innovation a continuation of a big array in the modern critical thinking arena.

Reflection of Poe's and Hawthorne's contribution to modern genre gives future and current literary positive discernment on the participation of post-revolutionary thinkers and contemporary culture. Exploration of the in-depth social norms of human soul Poe and Hawthorne uncover the contribution of fiction in life. The adoption of these forms of fictionally styles literature diversifies into acumen on the cultural influence of personality. The boundaries of using the styles applied by the duo give new writing bases to focus on societies' functions to bring mythical scenes into reality. The historical narration of situations influencing the authors brings to light further reflections on the revolution of fantasies and diversification of language. The combination of good and evil shows the contrast in life to give a better understanding of the challenges faced by the human heart today. The use of Puritan matters, morality, devotion and allegiance to characterize the leading players in the narratives gives current authors baselines to show social acceptance and rejection of human behavior. The description applied by Poe and Hawthorne to show the characters of their writings show the personality traits skeptical for human understanding. Literature learners around the world ask the immense contribution of Hawthorne and Poe to gain an agreement on the liberty in the combination of literal genres by adopting the concepts of Dark Romantic when new authors explore the new styles showing fantasy.

Works cited

Lloyd-Smith, Allan. "Nineteenth-Century American Gothic". A Companion to the Gothic. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. 109-121. Print.

Unit 6, "The Early 19th Century Lecture".: Class lecture noted Unit 6, 2017.