Photography and Nineteenth Nína Rúna Kvaran
Century American Literature
Professor: Eva Heisler
In Search of the Mark
April, 2003
Nathaniel Hawthorne is an author deserving of great interest for he has a way of diving into the darker sides of humanity and expose the moral decay that can at times be found in the damp basements and gloomy attics of the human soul. As an author he has a way of supplying his readers with just the right dosage of morbid-ness needed to produce goose bumps and shivers. The Birth-Mark is no exception from this as Hawthorne manages to take the notion of beauty and perfection and through imagery contort it so that it may be seen as perhaps being mankind’s greatest flaw.
This paper is going to look closely at the subject of the image of beauty, by examining Nathaniel Hawthorne’s aforementioned short story “The Birth-Mark”. I will investigate with considerable detail the imagery and ideas put forth by the author. The main point of this will be to demonstrate how different images of characters and objects that are presented in the story, portray certain ideas of gender roles, science and most importantly, of beauty, as those subjects might have been seen in the period of the author’s life and might be seen in modern life as well.
Before advancing any further, a brief summary of the story is in order. The story takes place in a time period that Hawthorne refers to as ”…the latter part of the last century” which would then have meant the eighteenth century. The setting is the home of Aylmer the scientist who has just married a beautiful young woman called Georgiana. Aylmer has a laboratory assistant called Aminadab. Shortly after their marriage Aylmer’s obsession begins. Georgiana has a birthmark on her left cheek in the shape of a little, red hand. Aylmer becomes fixated with the mark and seeks his wife’s consent to try to remove it. In the end he discovers a way to do this task but the tragic consequence is the death of Georgiana.
I will begin by investigating the images of the physical appearance of the characters since it may well be seen as playing an important part in the story. The physical appearance gives the reader an indication of what kind of behavior to expect from the characters, but nevertheless the characters sometimes stray away from that set frame of expectations.
Aylmer is an educated man of science with a slender, tall frame and a pale complexion. All of this insinuates the image of a refined and intelligent gentleman. His assistant, Aminadab, is on the other hand described as “…a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace.” He is even said to have “great mechanical readiness”, since he is able to perform on Aylmer’s demand but doesn’t really understand the scientific procedures. These two characters contrast each other in a very striking way. The most obvious way to interpret these two very different images is to consider Aylmer as a representative of the spiritual element of human nature and Aminadab as the more earthly, physical element of human nature and this idea is indeed what the author firmly puts forth in the story. These images are slightly deceitful because although both characters do live up to these descriptions up to an extent, they nevertheless, as said before, also stray away from what one might expect them to do according to the ideas that their images create in one’s mind.
One would expect Aylmer, since he is such an intelligent man, to have the common sense to be happy with his wife as she is and forget about the trifle detail of her birthmark. One would also expect him as a scientist to at least be able to prevent her death as a result of his experiments. Obviously, he is material and vain enough to let the birthmark become a deadly obsession and he is not a clever enough scientist to keep his wife from dying from the removing procedure. There is even a foreshadowing of this when Georgiana is wandering about and starts reading one of her husband’s folios, in which she can see that “his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures.” After seeing such a record of repeated scientific failure, one would not be shocked if she decided to withdraw from the whole experiment since he might be apt to continue to fail, although such a reaction would contrast with the unselfish qualities and undying love her character has been depicted to have for her husband.
It would not be entirely presumptuous of the reader to expect a character like Aminadab, who is described as being so dim-witted and machine-like, to live up to that, and in many ways he certainly does. It interesting to note that he mutters to himself: “If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark.” By saying so he is, surprisingly, being the more sensible of the two men and by expressing his appreciation of the woman’s beauty he also steps out of the role of the “man of clay” and the “human machine” and shows his human-ness by his healthy manly lust. Another thing struck me as odd about his character, and that is his “…gross, hoarse chuckle…” of delight when Georgiana is waking up and which he repeats when she dies. He could simply be living up to his descriptions of stupidity or this might be a hint of sarcasm. In any case it gives the reader the idea that he is not as much of a “machine” as Aylmer claims.
When speaking of Georgiana, the birthmark obviously comes into mind. She is described as an utter beauty, flawless in every way except that she has this rather unusual birthmark on her face. This image of the birthmark is the most important one in the story and it opens a river of ideas concerning beauty, what it really is and how it may be recognized when seen. There are various observations to be made on the mark.
Firstly, the mark has a way of changing itself according to Georgiana’s mental and physical state. If she is happy and healthy the birthmark is less evident since it melts into her blushing face. But if she is ill or “…any shifting motion caused her to turn pale…” the mark looks like “…a crimson stain upon the snow…” This imagery is delightful and promotes the idea of the mark being a kind of emotion-monitor, making its owner incapable of hiding her feelings.
Secondly, different people see the mark very differently. People that liked Georgiana, especially men, mostly (though not without exception as can be seen by Aylmer) considered its presence charming and liked to imagine 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”. Another delighting image that gives the reader the impression that the mark is in fact not a defect but only something that in its own way enhances Georgiana’s individual beauty. On the other hand, many women in their obvious envy of Georgiana chose to call the mark “the bloody hand” and discuss how it made her visage seem even hideous.
Thirdly is Georgiana’s own perception of the birthmark. She confesses to her husband that she has never been bothered by the mark and since it had so often been called a charm, she had been tempted to believe it to be just that. But unfortunately, Georgiana takes her husband’s revulsion of the mark dead (excuse the pun) seriously and she very quickly comes to view it with his eyes.
By these various descriptions of the mark, it is obvious that even though it plays a key role in the entire story and its development, it is not so obvious as to what this role might actually be. The mark is at the center of attention throughout story but the imagery of it is forever changing. It’s described either as a charm or a defect and it seems to have a life of its own on Georgiana’s face, fading or illuminating itself according to her disposition. Being the only flaw on an otherwise perfect face, the mark could be seen as a representative of a certain human element. Despite of all the numerous and amazing attributes the human race has, it also has the Achilles’ heel of imperfection. The different images of the birthmark can be seen as a representative of different human elements. It can be seen as a charming attribute, it can represent its “owner’s” emotions and it can represent the human element of error, defect or lack of perfection with all the implications and complexities involved in that, just as Aylmer’s and Aminadab’s physique can be seen as representatives of the spiritual and physical elements of human nature.
Reading through the part of the story where people are described as talking about Georgiana, either to her face or behind her back, one wonders whether people have ever discussed one’s own beauty or lack of it, in the same manner. The story is very thought- provoking and raises the ancient old question of what beauty really is and also what Hawthorne might be trying to say about beauty. Of course the general question will not be answered on these pages but by interpreting the tragic ending of the story it might be concluded that Hawthorne valued the idea of seeing beauty as something that could be measured by how symmetrical faces are or how many scars and marks are on them, as ungodly since in the story this notion (held by Aylmer and later his wife) leads to a process that ends in death and as a result imperfection, two themes that have long since been religiously considered as the opposite of godliness or the divine.
Georgiana shows beauty not only by her sheer physical being but also by her feelings and actions. The reader might be upset when reading the story since it can be difficult to accept Georgiana’s lack of assertiveness and character demonstrated by the fact that she lets Aylmer’s view influence her so deeply and she changes her entire self-image because of him and accepts his proposal of removing the mark. But as one thinks more and more about it, she actually does a beautiful thing. By this I refer not to her submitting to her husband’s demented will, but to the scene where she reads the volumes of his scientific library. She finds out that Aylmer, with all his good intentions, has rarely succeeded in any of his experiments and his failures are more numerous than his scientific successes. This is when she really discovers her husband’s most serious defect (excluding his obsessive vanity). Many, if not most, women want their husbands to be successful in what ever their careers might be. This must have been especially true in times when all the majority of women could really do, was to be married off. Having no careers of their own, they must have been even more set on finding a successful husband to provide for them and give them a sense of pride. Therefore it is not so difficult to imagine that Georgiana’s reaction to her discovery should be disappointment and frustration. But that is not what happens. She is filled with more love than before. Her husband’s fault or defect makes him more human and fallible and she loves him all the more for it as can be seen in her reaction when he finds her in tears over the volumes: “It has made me worship you more than ever”. This scene, as is the final scene in which Georgiana tells Aylmer not to repent his actions even though she dying from them, are the only ones in the whole story that give the reader a sense of true and profound beauty (excluding the beauty of the author’s language use); something that is more than just skin deep so to speak.
Aylmer hardly does much that is remotely beautiful or that promotes beauty in any way, if one excludes the optical illusions he creates to entertain Georgiana. In fact, his whole demeanor is very ugly and he seems to fail at most everything he does. He tries to play God. He is by any standard a lucky man who has a happy and healthy wife but in his morbid search for perfection, he ruins her and ends her life, all because he could not accept that she was not a perfect goddess but merely human, with all the qualities and defects that come with that. It even makes his view more disturbing when Hawthorne expresses Aylmer’s idea that “Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy’s self could have found aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand…” Poor Georgiana’s doom was that she was simply too beautiful to be “allowed” to carry this mark on her visage. It is only when she is dying that she is finally described as “the now perfect woman”. But what good is her perfection to herself or Aylmer if all she has left to do in her earthly existence is to decompose?
Aylmer is very fallible and there is one image in the story that is particularly foreshadowing of his ultimate failure with Georgiana. This is when he attempts to take her picture, fixing her image by using a daguerreotype-like method. The image turns out horribly, it is blurred and the mark is more evident then ever before. Aylmer throws the failed portrait away immediately because of how obviously the birthmark stands out in it, just as he later throws away his wife’s life for the same wretched birthmark.
There is a message in this story that it fully applies to modern society, even more than it might have applied to Hawthorne’s. The emphasis on physical beauty has always been heavy, especially concerning women since their physical appearance could have immense influence on how “well” they were married off. This usage of feminine beauty as a commercial asset has unfortunately not been eliminated but quite the opposite. With the media explosion of the last decades and its continuum, people are being exposed more and more to images of so-called physical “perfection” and just as the image of Georgiana’s so-called “imperfection”, the birthmark, these modern images are the cause of many misfortunate ideas that have led to misery and self-hatred amongst millions of people, especially women. Even though Aylmer’s obsession about the birthmark is despicable, it is not so difficult to sympathize with his view up to an extent. Many people nowadays not only consider but also actually put themselves voluntarily under the cosmetic scalpel. It seems to be inherent in human nature to always seek perfection or to always search for “the mark” so as to eliminate it from existence no matter how great the sacrifices. One wonders whether we are not doomed to fail in that quest since standards of human perfection and beauty vary so much from one society to another. Therefore it might be said that beauty is a very whimsical notion. Some might even agree that it is nothing but a mere optical illusions as were the “…absolutely bodiless ideas, forms of unsubstantial beauty…” that Aylmer entertained his wife with before she underwent the beauty treatment he had installed for her. What might be perceived as one of the major points in the story is the social and scientific moral that Hawthorne promotes. When one tries to play God as Aylmer does by actually believing that he, a mere mortal scientist, can be the creator of the ultimate faultless beauty, one is doomed to fail because humans are not divine but only very imperfect and defected creatures. Perhaps the only way us humans can succeed in creating perfection and true beauty is when we reach a stage in our lives that allows us to give unconditional love to another person but without promoting our own destruction at the same time as Georgiana does. Here the emphasis on human foully is repeated. Georgiana’s love for her husband most certainly seems unconditional but it is not perfect because she lets herself be destroyed for it, and with her death she also kills the perfection and beauty of her existence by throwing away the most precious gift each person has, and that is her life.
Bibliography
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birth-Mark”. 23 January 2003.
http://www.geocities.com/short_stories_page/hawthornebirthmark.html/
Trimmer, Joseph F. Writing with a Purpose. Boston and New York. Houghton Mifflin
Company. 2001, 241-245.
Century American Literature
Professor: Eva Heisler
In Search of the Mark
April, 2003
Nathaniel Hawthorne is an author deserving of great interest for he has a way of diving into the darker sides of humanity and expose the moral decay that can at times be found in the damp basements and gloomy attics of the human soul. As an author he has a way of supplying his readers with just the right dosage of morbid-ness needed to produce goose bumps and shivers. The Birth-Mark is no exception from this as Hawthorne manages to take the notion of beauty and perfection and through imagery contort it so that it may be seen as perhaps being mankind’s greatest flaw.
This paper is going to look closely at the subject of the image of beauty, by examining Nathaniel Hawthorne’s aforementioned short story “The Birth-Mark”. I will investigate with considerable detail the imagery and ideas put forth by the author. The main point of this will be to demonstrate how different images of characters and objects that are presented in the story, portray certain ideas of gender roles, science and most importantly, of beauty, as those subjects might have been seen in the period of the author’s life and might be seen in modern life as well.
Before advancing any further, a brief summary of the story is in order. The story takes place in a time period that Hawthorne refers to as ”…the latter part of the last century” which would then have meant the eighteenth century. The setting is the home of Aylmer the scientist who has just married a beautiful young woman called Georgiana. Aylmer has a laboratory assistant called Aminadab. Shortly after their marriage Aylmer’s obsession begins. Georgiana has a birthmark on her left cheek in the shape of a little, red hand. Aylmer becomes fixated with the mark and seeks his wife’s consent to try to remove it. In the end he discovers a way to do this task but the tragic consequence is the death of Georgiana.
I will begin by investigating the images of the physical appearance of the characters since it may well be seen as playing an important part in the story. The physical appearance gives the reader an indication of what kind of behavior to expect from the characters, but nevertheless the characters sometimes stray away from that set frame of expectations.
Aylmer is an educated man of science with a slender, tall frame and a pale complexion. All of this insinuates the image of a refined and intelligent gentleman. His assistant, Aminadab, is on the other hand described as “…a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace.” He is even said to have “great mechanical readiness”, since he is able to perform on Aylmer’s demand but doesn’t really understand the scientific procedures. These two characters contrast each other in a very striking way. The most obvious way to interpret these two very different images is to consider Aylmer as a representative of the spiritual element of human nature and Aminadab as the more earthly, physical element of human nature and this idea is indeed what the author firmly puts forth in the story. These images are slightly deceitful because although both characters do live up to these descriptions up to an extent, they nevertheless, as said before, also stray away from what one might expect them to do according to the ideas that their images create in one’s mind.
One would expect Aylmer, since he is such an intelligent man, to have the common sense to be happy with his wife as she is and forget about the trifle detail of her birthmark. One would also expect him as a scientist to at least be able to prevent her death as a result of his experiments. Obviously, he is material and vain enough to let the birthmark become a deadly obsession and he is not a clever enough scientist to keep his wife from dying from the removing procedure. There is even a foreshadowing of this when Georgiana is wandering about and starts reading one of her husband’s folios, in which she can see that “his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures.” After seeing such a record of repeated scientific failure, one would not be shocked if she decided to withdraw from the whole experiment since he might be apt to continue to fail, although such a reaction would contrast with the unselfish qualities and undying love her character has been depicted to have for her husband.
It would not be entirely presumptuous of the reader to expect a character like Aminadab, who is described as being so dim-witted and machine-like, to live up to that, and in many ways he certainly does. It interesting to note that he mutters to himself: “If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark.” By saying so he is, surprisingly, being the more sensible of the two men and by expressing his appreciation of the woman’s beauty he also steps out of the role of the “man of clay” and the “human machine” and shows his human-ness by his healthy manly lust. Another thing struck me as odd about his character, and that is his “…gross, hoarse chuckle…” of delight when Georgiana is waking up and which he repeats when she dies. He could simply be living up to his descriptions of stupidity or this might be a hint of sarcasm. In any case it gives the reader the idea that he is not as much of a “machine” as Aylmer claims.
When speaking of Georgiana, the birthmark obviously comes into mind. She is described as an utter beauty, flawless in every way except that she has this rather unusual birthmark on her face. This image of the birthmark is the most important one in the story and it opens a river of ideas concerning beauty, what it really is and how it may be recognized when seen. There are various observations to be made on the mark.
Firstly, the mark has a way of changing itself according to Georgiana’s mental and physical state. If she is happy and healthy the birthmark is less evident since it melts into her blushing face. But if she is ill or “…any shifting motion caused her to turn pale…” the mark looks like “…a crimson stain upon the snow…” This imagery is delightful and promotes the idea of the mark being a kind of emotion-monitor, making its owner incapable of hiding her feelings.
Secondly, different people see the mark very differently. People that liked Georgiana, especially men, mostly (though not without exception as can be seen by Aylmer) considered its presence charming and liked to imagine 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”. Another delighting image that gives the reader the impression that the mark is in fact not a defect but only something that in its own way enhances Georgiana’s individual beauty. On the other hand, many women in their obvious envy of Georgiana chose to call the mark “the bloody hand” and discuss how it made her visage seem even hideous.
Thirdly is Georgiana’s own perception of the birthmark. She confesses to her husband that she has never been bothered by the mark and since it had so often been called a charm, she had been tempted to believe it to be just that. But unfortunately, Georgiana takes her husband’s revulsion of the mark dead (excuse the pun) seriously and she very quickly comes to view it with his eyes.
By these various descriptions of the mark, it is obvious that even though it plays a key role in the entire story and its development, it is not so obvious as to what this role might actually be. The mark is at the center of attention throughout story but the imagery of it is forever changing. It’s described either as a charm or a defect and it seems to have a life of its own on Georgiana’s face, fading or illuminating itself according to her disposition. Being the only flaw on an otherwise perfect face, the mark could be seen as a representative of a certain human element. Despite of all the numerous and amazing attributes the human race has, it also has the Achilles’ heel of imperfection. The different images of the birthmark can be seen as a representative of different human elements. It can be seen as a charming attribute, it can represent its “owner’s” emotions and it can represent the human element of error, defect or lack of perfection with all the implications and complexities involved in that, just as Aylmer’s and Aminadab’s physique can be seen as representatives of the spiritual and physical elements of human nature.
Reading through the part of the story where people are described as talking about Georgiana, either to her face or behind her back, one wonders whether people have ever discussed one’s own beauty or lack of it, in the same manner. The story is very thought- provoking and raises the ancient old question of what beauty really is and also what Hawthorne might be trying to say about beauty. Of course the general question will not be answered on these pages but by interpreting the tragic ending of the story it might be concluded that Hawthorne valued the idea of seeing beauty as something that could be measured by how symmetrical faces are or how many scars and marks are on them, as ungodly since in the story this notion (held by Aylmer and later his wife) leads to a process that ends in death and as a result imperfection, two themes that have long since been religiously considered as the opposite of godliness or the divine.
Georgiana shows beauty not only by her sheer physical being but also by her feelings and actions. The reader might be upset when reading the story since it can be difficult to accept Georgiana’s lack of assertiveness and character demonstrated by the fact that she lets Aylmer’s view influence her so deeply and she changes her entire self-image because of him and accepts his proposal of removing the mark. But as one thinks more and more about it, she actually does a beautiful thing. By this I refer not to her submitting to her husband’s demented will, but to the scene where she reads the volumes of his scientific library. She finds out that Aylmer, with all his good intentions, has rarely succeeded in any of his experiments and his failures are more numerous than his scientific successes. This is when she really discovers her husband’s most serious defect (excluding his obsessive vanity). Many, if not most, women want their husbands to be successful in what ever their careers might be. This must have been especially true in times when all the majority of women could really do, was to be married off. Having no careers of their own, they must have been even more set on finding a successful husband to provide for them and give them a sense of pride. Therefore it is not so difficult to imagine that Georgiana’s reaction to her discovery should be disappointment and frustration. But that is not what happens. She is filled with more love than before. Her husband’s fault or defect makes him more human and fallible and she loves him all the more for it as can be seen in her reaction when he finds her in tears over the volumes: “It has made me worship you more than ever”. This scene, as is the final scene in which Georgiana tells Aylmer not to repent his actions even though she dying from them, are the only ones in the whole story that give the reader a sense of true and profound beauty (excluding the beauty of the author’s language use); something that is more than just skin deep so to speak.
Aylmer hardly does much that is remotely beautiful or that promotes beauty in any way, if one excludes the optical illusions he creates to entertain Georgiana. In fact, his whole demeanor is very ugly and he seems to fail at most everything he does. He tries to play God. He is by any standard a lucky man who has a happy and healthy wife but in his morbid search for perfection, he ruins her and ends her life, all because he could not accept that she was not a perfect goddess but merely human, with all the qualities and defects that come with that. It even makes his view more disturbing when Hawthorne expresses Aylmer’s idea that “Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy’s self could have found aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand…” Poor Georgiana’s doom was that she was simply too beautiful to be “allowed” to carry this mark on her visage. It is only when she is dying that she is finally described as “the now perfect woman”. But what good is her perfection to herself or Aylmer if all she has left to do in her earthly existence is to decompose?
Aylmer is very fallible and there is one image in the story that is particularly foreshadowing of his ultimate failure with Georgiana. This is when he attempts to take her picture, fixing her image by using a daguerreotype-like method. The image turns out horribly, it is blurred and the mark is more evident then ever before. Aylmer throws the failed portrait away immediately because of how obviously the birthmark stands out in it, just as he later throws away his wife’s life for the same wretched birthmark.
There is a message in this story that it fully applies to modern society, even more than it might have applied to Hawthorne’s. The emphasis on physical beauty has always been heavy, especially concerning women since their physical appearance could have immense influence on how “well” they were married off. This usage of feminine beauty as a commercial asset has unfortunately not been eliminated but quite the opposite. With the media explosion of the last decades and its continuum, people are being exposed more and more to images of so-called physical “perfection” and just as the image of Georgiana’s so-called “imperfection”, the birthmark, these modern images are the cause of many misfortunate ideas that have led to misery and self-hatred amongst millions of people, especially women. Even though Aylmer’s obsession about the birthmark is despicable, it is not so difficult to sympathize with his view up to an extent. Many people nowadays not only consider but also actually put themselves voluntarily under the cosmetic scalpel. It seems to be inherent in human nature to always seek perfection or to always search for “the mark” so as to eliminate it from existence no matter how great the sacrifices. One wonders whether we are not doomed to fail in that quest since standards of human perfection and beauty vary so much from one society to another. Therefore it might be said that beauty is a very whimsical notion. Some might even agree that it is nothing but a mere optical illusions as were the “…absolutely bodiless ideas, forms of unsubstantial beauty…” that Aylmer entertained his wife with before she underwent the beauty treatment he had installed for her. What might be perceived as one of the major points in the story is the social and scientific moral that Hawthorne promotes. When one tries to play God as Aylmer does by actually believing that he, a mere mortal scientist, can be the creator of the ultimate faultless beauty, one is doomed to fail because humans are not divine but only very imperfect and defected creatures. Perhaps the only way us humans can succeed in creating perfection and true beauty is when we reach a stage in our lives that allows us to give unconditional love to another person but without promoting our own destruction at the same time as Georgiana does. Here the emphasis on human foully is repeated. Georgiana’s love for her husband most certainly seems unconditional but it is not perfect because she lets herself be destroyed for it, and with her death she also kills the perfection and beauty of her existence by throwing away the most precious gift each person has, and that is her life.
Bibliography
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birth-Mark”. 23 January 2003.
http://www.geocities.com/short_stories_page/hawthornebirthmark.html/
Trimmer, Joseph F. Writing with a Purpose. Boston and New York. Houghton Mifflin
Company. 2001, 241-245.
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