Noble Love in The Birthmark
Often billed as a story of an unsuccessful attempt to beat Nature at her own game, “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne certainly lends itself to a somewhat deeper interpretation. Over the years many scholars have noted that the story of Aylmer and Georgiana is riddled with traditional Hawthorne themes such as the evils of selfishness and pride, coupled with an element of solitariness (Arvin xvi). However, we are want to consider whether Aylmer’s motives in this story are purely selfish. Does this man perhaps deserve a touch of human sympathy?
With blazingly obvious symbolism, clearly defined by the author himself, the reader can choose to take the tale for what it seems to be, a purely selfish experiment gone awry. Yet, it seems as though Hawthorne was sympathetic to his man of science, leaving open for discussion the idea that love did exist in this sordid world of tiny hands and test tubes. Although it is at times ambiguous, the tone of the story seems to point to just this idea. Of it Richard Fogle writes:
“…Hawthorne’s attitude is so removed and imperturbable that nothing in the story can be taken simply; in “The Birthmark” he reaches his furthest rage of disengagement” (Fogle 118). It is through the intellectual and moral development of Georgiana, not the scientists own actions or words, that the reader comes to understand that although twisted in his methods, Aylmer does possess a kind of “noble” love.
When the story opens, we are told that “an experience of spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one” has caused “a man of science” to take leave of his laboratory and be married. The narrator also tells the reader it was not unusual, in ...
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...horne 165). Wife-less and left only with his hairy apprentice, Aylmer can at least rest assured that he “aimed loftily” and acted “nobly.”
Works Cited
Arvin, Newton. Introduction. Hawthorne’s Short Stories. Ed. Newton Arvin. New York: Vintage Books, 1946. v-xvii.
Fogle, Richard Harter. Hawthorne’s Fiction: The Light and The Dark. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964. 117-31
Fossum, Robert H. Hawthorne’s Inviolable Circle: The Problem of Time. Florida: Everett/Edwards Inc, 1972. 77-79
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birthmark.” Hawthorne’s Short Stories. Ed. Newton Arvin. New York: Vintage Books, 1946. 147-65.
Stein, William Bysshe. Hawthorne’s Faust: A Study of the Devil Archetype. New York: Archon Books, 1968. 91-92
Another thing is McCandless’s equipment that he goes into the wild with and how it caused his death. Some of the things that McCandless h...
"Nathaniel Hawthorne." American Studies @ The University of Virginia. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2013. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma01/lisle/dial/hawthorne.html
In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark,” Aylmer, a crazed, “mad-scientist,” seeks to remove the scarlet handprint birthmark from his wife, Georgiana’s cheek. From the opening of the work, the third person narrator describes Aylmer’s obsession with science and the adverse effects it has had on his social life. Aylmer is tied up in this battle within himself and with his assigned association between the natural and the spiritual world. He wishes to have as much control over these colliding worlds as possible, granting himself god-like power and control in the process. In the art of manipulating nature through science, Aylmer believes he is able to alter the spiritual aspects of the natural as well. Aylmer’s focus on spirituality is Hawthorne’s way of commenting on mankind’s fixation on sin and redemption.
Lang, H.J.. “How Ambiguous Is Hawthorne.” In Hawthorne – A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by A.N. Kaul. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1966.
Alan says, “They [Pink Floyd] arguably were the most technically minded band out there. They knew what a recording studio was capable of, and they took full advantage. And they worked me hard—they always worked their engineers hard to push the barriers. There’s no better band for an engineer to cut his teeth on, frankly.” (Anonymous. "Studio Legends: Alan Parsons on "Dark Side of the Moon")
Hawthorne’s juxtaposition of opposites, of “marble and mud” within “The Birthmark” is a contributing factor to the ambiguity within the story. How could someone like Aminadab possibly be working side by side with the intellectual scientist, Aylmer? How can Georgiana proceed with the experimental cure after reading Aylmer’s scientific journal and after witnessing firsthand the failure of the flower and photograph experiments? Peter Conn in “Finding a Voice in an New Nation” makes a statement regarding Hawthorne’s ambiguity: “Almost all of Hawthorne’s finest stories are remote in time or place. The glare of contemporary reality immobilized his imagination. He required shadows and half-light, and he sought a nervous equilibrium in ambiguity” (82).
Fogle, Richard Harter. "Hawthorne's fiction: The Light and the Dark." Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of Short Fiction. Ed. Nancy Bunge. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. 133-35
To understand the message of “The Birthmark”, we must first understand the events and circumstances that took place in Hawthorn’s time period which most likely prompted him to write this short story. Nathaniel Hawthorn was a 19th century novelist who is perhaps best known for writing The Scarlet Letter. In Hawthorn’s time, a new belief system called positivism was on the rise. Positivism exalted science. This ne...
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. American Literature. Vol. 1. New York: Penguin Academics, 2004. 592-778. Print.
Nathaniel Hawthorne did not do much explaining when it came to the characters involved in "The Birthmark". He did not portray the main characters: Aylmer, Georgiana, and Ambidab as human beings, but rather as symbols. While analyzing the story "The Birthmark", I have achieved some great insight of the author 's articulate writing style; especially, his style of making characters have symbolic meaning. In this story, Hawthorne uses his characters to symbolize specific things. In this ambiguous, short story, the three characters each symbolize Science, Beauty, and Nature. Each character represents an unusual force that has equally worked against each other.
The mizvots of the Torah are not seen as absolute. With the exception of three of the mizvots, all other mizvots may be broken in order to save a l...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, is the story of a crazed scientist whose strive for perfection not only leads to the death of his beautiful wife, but the attempt of man to have power over nature. It follows the story of Aylmer and his obsession with removing the birthmark off his beautiful wife, Georgiana. “His unnatural fixation to his wife’s birthmark even consumes him in his sleep as he dreams of cutting it off much like scraping an apple off its skin.” (Snodgrass 29). This narrative explores the themes of perfection, and the conflict between science and the natural world.
The next reason we’ll be looking at are the stereotypical images commonly seen in literature and mascots. Mainstream media such as “Dances with Wolves”, “The Lone Ranger”, and “The Last of The Mohicans” and mascots in professional sports teams like Washington Redskins, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, and Chicago Blackhawks all include representations of Native Americans that for some, are offensive. With this in mind, ...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1843 short story entitled “The Birth-Mark” is, at face value, a traditionally formatted Hawthorne story; it is a textbook example of his recurrent theme of the unpardonable sin as committed by the primary character, Aylmer, the repercussions of which result in the untimely death of his wife, Georgiana. However, there seems to be an underlying theme to the story that adds a layer to Hawthorne’s common theme of the unpardonable sin; when Aylmer attempts to reconcile his intellectual prowess with his love for his wife, his efforts turn into an obsession with perfecting his wife’s single physical flaw and her consequent death. This tragedy occurs within the confines of traditional gender
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