A Birthmark Analysis by Nathaniel Hawthorne
As in all of Hawthorne’s writing, when one finishes reading his stories, more questions arise than answers. No other writer makes you question like Hawthorne. The philosophical question of what true perfection is and whether it can be achieved through physical means or whether it is a state of the spirit is at the heart of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story The Birthmark.
Aylmer, the main character of the story is a brilliant scientist / alchemist. He possesses a belief in “man’s supreme control over nature”, and thinks that there is nothing that man cannot master or achieve. His obsession with his wife’s imperfect little birthmark, which resembles a hand, begins shortly after they get married. Aylmer is obsessed with the perfection of his wife Georgiana; He believes that in order to experience perfect love, he must have a perfect woman to love. Her obsession gradually turns into Georgiana’s obsession, at which point she becomes so distraught that she tells Aylmer, “Take away this hideous hand or take my miserable life.” Aylmer sits down and tells his wife that there may be a risk involved, but he is confident that he will remove the mark and his beautiful girlfriend will be perfect in every way. He establishes a comfortable environment for his wife described as “beautiful apartments, not unfit to be the secluded abode of a charming woman.” After the alchemist tries and fails numerous methods to remove his wife’s mark, he develops a “perfect elixir” that will undoubtedly cure her and make her completely perfect. He administers this elixir and to his great delight he sees the cursed hand begin to fade and disappear; only to have his wife say, “Aylmer, dear Aylmer, I’m dying!”
Georgiana achieved perfection in Aylmer’s eyes in her last moments; So did Aylmer achieve what he set out to achieve? I think it did. Aylmer was a man who loved his job; he loved science more than he could ever love any human being. He was a man plagued with shortcomings and imperfections, and as a result of his low self-vision, he demanded perfection in his wife. This is shown when Georgiana is reading from her ledger, which is described as a “sad confession and a continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man.” Aylmer was a selfish individual whose sole goal is to make his wife perfect for her own sake or perhaps for the sake of science. All of these things are true; I think he loved Georgiana and, in his own strange way, wanted her to be perfect for her sake, because he believed she deserved no less. In his search for his perfection (which is impossible in the purely material sense) he destroyed it.
Aylmer’s wife, Georgiana, was at first a happy woman; married to someone she believed to be a great man, until one day her husband tells her that the mark on her cheek could be removed. This, of course, is the beginning of her, as well as her husband’s obsession with eliminating his only blemish. The first thing that came to mind about Georgiana was her undying love, her loyalty, and her desire to please her husband. This was very much a brand of the time. The fact that she would rather die than face his disapproval struck me as significant. She seemed to me, to be the maximum exemplification of love and selflessness, at an insane level, which is exhibited in the line “You have aimed haughtily! You have done it nobly! Do not regret it, with such high and pure affection” . feeling, you have rejected the best that the earth has to offer. “Georgiana does not feel bad about her husband because she believes that his feelings are pure love.
The Birthmark touches on similar themes to Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein in the idea that humans can possess supernatural power to undo and perfect what is imperfect. Aylmer does not believe in God or the natural laws he created, which is obvious from his belief in man’s ultimate control over nature. God created man as part of nature and we are not above nature, but we are integrated with it. Just as today we fight against the ethical questions of a greater understanding of science versus what we know to be natural law. Hawthorne’s story, The Birth Mark, is as relevant today as it was when it was written in 1843, if not more so. Today we struggle with issues like cloning, stem cell research, and other aspects of science that seem to be in contradiction with the laws of God and nature. If we are faced with the present-day problems that we face now, Hawthorne’s views would probably be the same as he has expressed in this tale; that when man tries to achieve what he was not destined to achieve, disaster will be the end result. The hand was not only a birthmark, but an integral part of Georgiana’s soul, and removing this mark in the pursuit of perfection was its demise.
Hawthorne is telling us that humanity is imperfect, that there is no perfection in the physical sense, and that the only way to achieve perfection is through spirit in death. The Christian parallel is clear here; none of us are perfect and the only way to become perfect is to become one with God, in death, which results in our going to heaven. This goes back to what makes us who we are; We are not pure flesh and blood, our psyche and our true selves go way beyond that.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story The Birth Mark addresses philosophical and ethical questions valid in his time as well as ours. His work makes us think about what perfection is and if it is desirable in the physical state. In the end we discover that if we exceed our limits and try to perfect what is imperfect, death will be the end result, because only in death through God can we achieve perfection.
by John Schlismann
