The Painted Door: A Short Story

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“I am the Heart of the people. Warm with me, Dance with me, Cook with me, Hear my stories. I am cleansing and renewal. Out of my ashes comes new ways of thinking and behaving, The Plant world regenerates itself. I am a brilliant glow across the spectrum, I am candles, sparkles and colour. I am warm, male and light. I am heat, change and motion. I am witches, beacons and brightness. My smoke carries my prayers to The Ancestors. I am the eternal witness in sacred ceremony. The centre of life fueled by Mother Earths tresses, the trees. Don’t you misuse me. In the heart of all people, I am passion, I am love, I am rebirth…I am fire.” Question: What are some of the safe things we could together on a regular basis? For most tribes, fire symbolizes…show more content…
However, the following day John's frigid corpse is found outside, run against the fence, frozen by the storm. While Ann lay with Steven, John, who had been away, fought for five miles through the near impassible storm to get home only to discover his adulterous wife and unfaithful friend. Ann sees John but, consumed by her guilt, mistakes him for a shadowy dream-like hallucination. A smudge of paint, found on John's palm, provides the only evidence of his presence in the house the previous night; it had transferred from the bedroom door she had painted that afternoon. John's motive to commit suicide comes from the deep love he feels for his wife; "it was not what he actually accomplished by means of the sacrifice…but the sacrifice itself, the gesture – something done for her sake" (Ross 161). John thinks that the result of his death will be the freedom of his wife. The tragic irony is that it's only after sleeping with Steven that Ann is able to renew her love for John and calm her inner storm, but by doing so she looses the object of her love, John, altogether. Alternatively, if she hadn't betrayed John and he hadn't come upon that fateful view, then he wouldn't have sacrificed himself for her, but (and there's always a ‘but' in fiction) Ann would still be emotionally conflicted and would still be unable to love and appreciate her husband. Irony also envelops Ann and Steven's immoral copulation because it was initially John's idea for Steven to visit while she was alone. In "The Birthmark" after long isolation and several removal attempts Aylmer finally has an auspicious solution. His concoction does work, however (which is a fancy word for but), as the birthmark on Georgiana's cheek fades away so does her life. By extracting her one diminutive and frivolous imperfection he also removes her

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