“The Birthmark” – The Theme
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale, “The Birthmark,” the dominant theme is love conquering self, though there is also present the theme of alienation resulting from the evil within mankind. This essay intends to explore, exemplify and develop this topic.
Hyatt Waggoner in “Nathaniel Hawthorne” states:
Alienation is perhaps the theme he handles with greatest power. “Insulation,” he sometimes called it – which suggests not only isolation but imperviousness. It is the opposite of that “osmosis of being” that Warren has written of, that ability to respond and relate to others and the world. . . . it puts one outside the ‘magic circle’ or the ‘magnetic chain’ of humanity, where there is neither love nor reality (54).
Waggoner’s theme of alienation does play a part in the tale, but the theme which dominates is that of love conquering self as exemplified in Georgiana’s growing love for Aylmer. Her love transforms her very soul. “Everything he has to say is related, finally, to ‘that inward sphere’” (McPherson 68-69). “When he desired to build the kingdom of God, he looked for the pattern of it, not in history nor in the fortunes of those about him, but in his own heart (Erskine 180).
In the opening paragraph of “The Birthmark” the narrator introduces Aylmer as a scientist who “had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one.” Hawthorne’s description of the scientist’s love for Georgiana is apt, for love is just that – spiritual. And the theme of this tale is a spiritual one. Through the course of the story Aylmer declines spiritually, while Georgiana advances spiritually.
Even after Aylmer has “persuaded a be...
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...John. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Leading American Novelists. New York: Books For Libraries Press, 1968.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birthmark” Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=HawBirt.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1
McPherson, Hugo. “Hawthorne’s Use of Mythology.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.
Waggoner, Hyatt. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In Six American Novelists of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Richard Foster. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1968.
Williams, Stanley T. “Hawthorne’s Puritan Mind.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.
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.
Sullivan, Wilson. “Nathaniel Hawthorne.” In New England Men of Letters. New York: Macmillan Co., 1972.
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).
Diagnosing Epilepsy can be a long process with lots of steps to follow. When first going thru the process there will need to be a confirmation of parent history. Then there will be a full neurological exam followed by blood and clinical tests, to make sure it wasn’t some other type of episode such as fainting. Apart from the neurological exam, the EEG is the best tool to diagnosing seizures and epilepsy. Then the doctor will identify the type of seizures and do a clinical evaluation to determine the cause of epilepsy. Now depending on the results they will determine the best type of treatment.
When should I get an epidural? Some doctors stated that you shouldn’t get an epidural until the cervix has dilated to 4 centimeters. New studies have claimed that you can have an epidural as soon as the pain gets unbearable. Many doctors still discourage getting an epidural before you are 4 centimeters dilated.
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...
According to the casual morphology, epilepsy can be divided into 3 categories: idiopathic, acquired (symptomatic) and cryptogenic (presumed symptomatic) (Engel, 2001; Loscher and Brandt, 2010). Idiopathic epilepsy is epileps...
Epilepsy is a condition characterized by recurrent seizures which are unprovoked by any immediately identifiable cause (Hopkins & Shorvon, 1995). It is also known as a seizure disorder. A wide range of links and risk factors are associated with the condition, but most of the time the cause is unknown. Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders, affecting approximately two and half million people in the US and about 50 million worldwide. Though seizures can occur at any age, epilepsy is most commonly seen in children and the elderly. Most respond well to treatment and can control their seizures, but for some it is a chronic illness. A clinical diagnosis is the first step to finding a potential cure for the disorder.
Around 50 million people in this world have to deal with epilepsy everyday. That is not always easy and, besides that, not everything is known about it yet. There are several types of epilepsy, but what is the difference between them and what are they called? My sister has reflex epilepsy, and that is exactly why I have chosen this subject. I was really curious about what happens in her brains during an epileptic attack. Next to that, I know what I should do when my sister has an epileptic attack, but as I already mentioned, there are many different kinds of insults. Therefore there are several ways to recognise them, but what are those? Additionally, there are various ways how you can help someone with an insult, but what are those ways? Before I am going to answer all these questions, I am going to tell you something about epilepsy in general first.
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.
A seizure is considered to be anything that disrupts the natural circuit of the brain. When a seizure happens, the brains neurons fire uncontrollably, causing the brain to make the body jerk, abruptly fall, or have distorted vision. The normal electrical balance in the brain is lost, the nerve cells misfire, and there is a sudden, brief, uncontrollable burst of abnormal electrical activity. This causes out of sync signals from the brain to misfire (Sahoo, 2014). There are over 3 million people who suffer from epilepsy in the United States alone, with most of them being diagnosed by the time they are twenty-five years old.( Epilepsy Foundation, 2014).
Typically, people who develop an eating disorder are in emotional turmoil. They want to be in control but feel they are not. Any anxiety, self-doubt, or feelings of failure or inadequacy become tied to how they look. When being thin becomes an obsession, when self-worth becomes associated with slimness, the stage is set for eating disorders. People with eating disorders become preoccupied, even obsessed, with food and weight. Eating disorders can lead to extreme behavior including self-starvation, bingeing, purging, and compulsive exercise. Untreated eating disorder lead to heart damage, depression, permanent health damage, or suicide. Eating disorders-- anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are psychiatric illnesses that affect over five million American women and men.
Epilepsy can be caused by a variety of incidents or have no known cause at all. Seizures are caused when anything causes a disruption of a burst of electricity in the brain (NINDS Epilepsy Information Page). Seizures can be triggered by strokes, diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, brain injuries, congenital brain defects, brain tumors, abnormal vessels in the brain, and many more (Epilepsy). Having one seizure does not mean a person has epilepsy. Only someone who has had two or more seizures can be considered epileptic (NINDS Epilepsy Information Page). Usually an epileptic person has a strange repetitive sensation called an “aura” before their seizures. An aura can be a sensation of tingling, mood changes, or smelling odors which are not actually there. Three types of seizures can occur with epilepsy: absence seizure, known as petit mal; generalized tonic-clonic seizure, known as grand mal; and partial seizure, known as a focal seizure. A petit mal seizure is the least severe of the three. Petit mal consists of a simple staring spell lasting for usually around fifteen seconds and can occur several times throughout the day. A grand mal seizure produces convulsions of the whole body including involuntary biting, inconti...
Eating disorders can be altered by many things including bullying. One way that an eating disorder can come about into someone's life if is low self-esteem. Negative body images can make someone want to become skinnier. When someone has a low self-esteem it means a person who has a very low image of themselves. They think that they are nothing and aren’t worthy of life. When someone thinks this they could exercise excessively thinking that it will make them skinnier.
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