As in all of Hawthorne’s writings, when one finishes reading his stories, more questions than answers arise. 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 is it a state of the spirit is at the heart of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story The Birth-Mark.
Aylmer, the main character of the story is a brilliant scientist/alchemist. He possesses a belief in “man’s ultimate control over nature” and believes that there is nothing man cannot master or achieve. His obsession with his wife’s tiny, imperfect birthmark, which resembles a hand, begins shortly after their marriage. Aylmer is fixated on the perfection of his wife Georgiana of his; he believes that in order to experience perfect love, he must have a perfect woman to love. Her obsession gradually becomes Georgiana’s obsession, at which point she becomes so distraught that she tells Aylmer, “Take away this terrible hand or take away my miserable life.” Aylmer sits down and tells his wife that there may be a risk, but he is confident that he will remove the mark and his beautiful bride will be perfect in every way. He sets up a comfortable environment for his wife described as “beautiful apartments, not unsuitable for the secluded abode of a lovely woman.” After the alchemist tries and fails numerous methods to remove the wife’s mark from her, he develops a “perfect elixir” that will surely heal her and make her completely perfect. He administers this elixir and, to his great delight, sees the cursed hand begin to fade and disappear; only for his wife to tell him “Aylmer, dear Aylmer, I’m dying!”
Georgiana achieved perfection in Aylmer’s eyes in her final moments; So, did Aylmer achieve what he set out to achieve? I think he did. Aylmer was a man who loved his work; he loved science more than he could ever love any human being. He was a man plagued with inadequacies and imperfections, and as a result of his low self-concept, he demanded perfection in his wife. This is on full display when Georgiana reads her ledger, which is described as a “sad confession and continuing exemplification of the shortcomings of the composed man”. Aylmer was a selfish individual whose only goal is to make his wife perfect for her own sake or perhaps for the sake of science. All these things being true; I think he loved Georgiana and, in her weird way, he wanted her to be perfect for her sake, because he believed she deserved no less from her. In her search for her perfection (which is impossible in the purely material sense) he destroyed her.
Aylmer’s wife, Georgiana, was at first a happy woman; she married someone she thought was 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 and her husband’s obsession with removing her one 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 trademark of the time. The fact that she would rather die than meet her disapproval seemed significant to me. She seemed to me, to be the ultimate exemplification of love and selflessness, to an insane level, on display in the line “You have aimed arrogantly! – You have aimed nobly! sentiment, you have rejected the best the earth could offer “. Georgiana doesn’t feel bad for her husband because she believes that her feelings are pure love.
The Birthmark draws on themes similar to Marry Shelly’s Frankenstein and the idea that humans may 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 integrated with it. Just as today we are fighting the ethical issues of further 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 are wrestling 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 current issues we are facing now, Hawthorne’s views would probably be the same as those he has expounded in this short story; that when man tries to achieve what he was not meant to achieve, disaster will be the end result. The hand was not just a birthmark, but an integral part of Georgiana’s soul, and removing this mark in her pursuit of perfection was the death of her.
Hawthorne is telling us that humanity is imperfect, that there is no such thing as perfection in the physical sense, and that the only way to achieve perfection is through the spirit at death. The Christian parallel is clear here; none of us is perfect and the only way to become perfect is to become one with God, at 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 much further than that.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story The Birth Mark touches on philosophical and ethical questions valid in his day, as well as in 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 overstep our limits and try to make what is imperfect perfect, death will be the end result, because only in death through God, can we achieve perfection.
by John Schlisman
