Nathaniel Hawthorne & “The Birthmark”

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne & “The Birthmark”

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne • Born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts. • Hawthorne had a constant sense of guilt for his great grandfather being a judge in the Salem Witch Trials. • Wrote Gothic stories during the Romanticism period of American literature.

3. Common Themes of Hawthorne • Dreams are a powerful tool, capable of revealing the darkest parts of the psyche. • Science is described as a dark art of terrible power. Its setting is typically in dark, fire lit labs where beakers and cathodes cast an eerie and ominous light around the scientist who is typically pale and unattractive. (Lord of the Rings similarity.) • Nature is described as a beautiful but temperamental force where beauty is often coupled with pain. • A woman who strengthens as a result of pain. • A woman who is willing endure terrible struggles for the love of an unworthy man. • Struggles with the soul creating madness in the mind. • Easily identifiable symbols– Aminadab, the birthmark • A priest who struggles with between religious piety and desire.

4. “The Birthmark” • Aylmer- Scientist, obsessed with the pursuits of the mind • Georgiana- Beautiful woman, child of nature • The problem- A birthmark on the cheek of Georgiana that resembles a hand- She considers it a charm of nature: Aylmer considers it an imperfection • Today’s translation- one person is satisfied with their body, the other sees is as disgusted by it.

5. Georgiana Birthmark’s • Resembled the hand of a fairy • “Georgiana's lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. “ • Many men of the village would have given anything to have kissed the mark, but there were some, mainly women, who thought the mark ruined her face. • The more Aylmer stares, the more she turns pale, the more the mark shows up  The more a person a fault is pointed out the more self-conscious one becomes about it.

6. Aylmer’s Obsession • “but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives.” • The crimson hand was a symbol of Georgiana’s imperfection, “the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death.” • To a man of science, this imperfection was eternally unacceptable. • for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before.

7. Georgiana’s transition • Georgiana, who once thought of herself as beautiful, now hates her countenance and is willing to risk death to remove her birthmark. • Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,--life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. • she placed her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's eye. • "Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment- Georgiana becomes stronger as a result of her trials. • Georgiana claims that she will drink any poison to satisfy him- She makes his unhappiness her burden. • “at his honorable love--so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. “

8. Aminadab • Lab assistant to Aylmer- similar to Igor of the Frankenstein movies. • "If she were my wife, I'd never part with that birthmark.” • Short, stocky worker who although he could not understand any of experiments still followed all his master’s commands. • “he seemed to represent man's physical nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. “ • Laughs at Aylmer’s attempt to conquer Nature with science and his waste of the best the world had to offer.

9. Nature vs. Science • “It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. “ • “that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. “ • "a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." • Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. • Each of Aylmer’s experiments fails around Georgiana.

10. Nature vs. Science • (the birthmark) was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. • In summary, Nature is a force that voluntarily places imperfections in all its creations to remind us that nothing is perfect and all things are temporal. Science is both foolish and arrogant to believe it could or should change that fact.

11. Moment vs. Eternal • “The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.” • Aylmer’s sin is he could not appreciate what he had for eternity based on his disquiet in the minor flaw of his wife. • He claims that the philosopher who could find a way to turn lead to gold or find the secret to eternal life “would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it," yet he is not wise enough to see the flaw within himself.

12. Romanticism • Rebellion against all things which hamper the individual • Focus on the downtrodden and underprivileged • Love of Nature, an appreciation of its beauty, serenity, and power. • Interest in the supernatural • The dawn of the romantic hero- a troubled loner that fought against outrageous odds for a task he will likely not complete • Hatred for hypocrisy • The past was a source of fascination and inspiration • A stress on the five senses