Discussion Topic
Aylmer's character and the central tension that defines him in "The Birthmark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Summary:
Aylmer's character in "The Birthmark" is defined by his obsession with perfection and his scientific ambition. The central tension arises from his inability to accept natural human flaws, represented by his wife's birthmark, and his relentless pursuit to remove it, which ultimately leads to tragic consequences.
What kind of person is Aylmer in "The Birthmark"?
The narrator of "The Birthmark" offers much information to help us understand Aylmer, a man who has a high opinion of himself as a scientist and an obsession with perfection.
We learn first that Aylmer's love of science rivals the love he has for Georgiana. After he marries her, his desire for perfection leads him to become more and more obsessed with the red birthmark in the shape of a tiny hand on her left check. We learn that if she had been less of a perfect specimen of female beauty, the birthmark would have bothered him less:
Seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives.
Aylmer reveals himself to be the kind of person who finds the cup half-empty rather than half full. Rather than content himself with all the ways that Georgiana...
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is a beautiful and gracious wife, he perseverates on her one small flaw.
Aylmer also shows that he is driven by pride. He truly believes he can perfect nature and safely rid Georgiana of her birthmark. If he had not had such a genius for science, he might have been more contented with accepting the world as it is, flaws and all, but his restless, dissatisfied desire for control and perfection creates a fatal brew when combined with his overconfident pride in his scientific knowledge.
We see his fatal hubris (pride) combined with his self-centeredness in the quote below. Correcting Georgiana's flaw is all about satisfying his own egotistical desire to triumph over nature:
I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work!
The moral of the tale is that the quest for perfection in this world is futile and leads to misery. As the narrator puts it:
Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial.
In "The Birthmark" by Hawthorne, what central tension defines Aylmer?
The central conflict in this story is Aylmer's fight against all that is natural. He is a failed scientist who is constantly attempting to "improve" and "fix" all that surrounds him. His lab is full of failed experiments, and his struggle to succeed is a source of pain and anguish for him.
He is married to the beautiful Georgiana. Her birthmark, in the shape of tiny hand on her cheek, is a source of disgust for him. As usual, he feels he should "fix" her by removing the mark by scientific means. It does not matter to him that she has always had this birthmark, and that Georgiana and those who know and love her see it as a blessing--the mark of angels or God Himself on her sweet face. It is part of who she is and part of her beauty. He looks at her, however, with such disgust that she eventually begs him to remove it regardless of the consequences. Ultimately, he is succssful, but Georgiana dies in the process.