Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birth-Mark, Raymond Carver’s Cathedral, and R

Nathaniel Hawthornes The Birth-Mark, Raymond Carvers Cathedral, and RandallKenans The Foundations of the Earth adorn how gravitas undermines knowledge and individual power and humility enhances those qualities. In all(prenominal) story, characters with parochial worldviews encounter people who challenge them to change. Other perspectives are visible(prenominal) if they are able to let go of their superior attitudes. For example, Hawthornes protagonist, Aylmer, believes he has the ability and right to create perfection. He views a birthmark on his wife, Georgiana, as evidence of a flaw that must be outside no matter what the cost. His assistant, Aminadab, (an earthy alter-ego) remarks, If she were my wife, Id never federal agency with that birthmark (Hawthorne 531). He does not say, Id let it be or Id tolerate it, but rather Id never part with it. This interpretation is so antithetical to Aylmers that it cries for inquiry. What is it that you are thinking, Aminadab? or What is i t about this birthmark that I find so ugly that you would treasure? Aylmer does not ask these questions. Arrogance shuts him down. One require humility in order to consider alternative points of view. New ideas do not enter Aylmers mind and he does not develop. His arrogance culminates in the death of Georgiana. In the other two stories, however, the characters mature by humbly opening to diverse perspectives, thus gaining knowledge and individual power. 1Raymond Carvers short story Cathedral opens with a vote counter whose wife has invited a blind friend to spend the night. The narrator depersonalizes the bit right off the bat and repeatedly throughout the story by referring to him, not by name, but as the blind man (Carver 513). He admits that hi... ...h. On the other hand, arrogance stifles ones growth by shutting out different perspectives. One is left with nothing pull up what one started with ones mind becomes a closed encase of stifling inflexibility or a Pandoras box o f irritation and blame. Sometimes arrogance leads to a fate like the one Georgiana and Aylmer see in Hawthornes short story.Works CitedHawthorne, Nathaniel. The Birth-Mark. Reading Literature and writing Argument. Ed. Missy James and Alan Merickel. Fourth ed. Boston Longman, 2011. 527-38. Print. Carver, Raymond. Cathedral. Reading Literature and committal to writing Argument. Ed. Missy James and Alan Merickel. Fourth ed. Boston Longman, 2011. 513-23. Print.Kenan, Randall. The Foundations of the Earth. Reading Literature and create verbally Argument. Ed. Missy James and Alan Merickel. Fourth ed. Boston Longman, 2011. 149-61. Print.