Discussion Topic

Character Symbolism in "The Birthmark"

Summary:

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark," characters embody key symbolic roles within the story's allegory of the conflict between nature and science. Aylmer, the scientist, represents human pride and the intellectual pursuit to perfect nature, highlighting his hubris. Georgiana, his wife, symbolizes human imperfection, with her birthmark illustrating the inherent flaws in humanity. Aminadab, Aylmer’s assistant, embodies the physical and earthly nature, understanding the futility of Aylmer's quest, and serves as a contrast to Aylmer's intellectualism.

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What concept does each character in "The Birthmark" represent?

Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Birthmark" uses allegory, a literary device where the characters represent specific elements of a story's social or political message. To figure out what each character signifies, we first need to look at the main theme of this story: man's desire to conquer and tame nature. Alymer is obsessed with science and using his intellect to, in Hawthorne's words, "lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself." In other words, he wants to bring order to the chaos found in the natural world. The situation gets dangerous, though, when he transfers his obsession with natural perfection to his wife, Georgiana, and the hand-shaped birthmark on her face. In using his scientific abilities to eliminate the birthmark, he achieves his goal, but Georgiana dies in the process. In short, the story shows the dangers that arise when people try to alter the natural imperfections of the world.

Now that we've established the theme, let's look at each of the three characters in the story and see how they illustrate this idea:

  • Alymer: As both a protagonist and antagonist in the story, Alymer represents the intellectual and spiritual nature of humans. Hawthorne directly states this in the second half of the story: "Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element." Alymer's quest to create perfection through science and his overall belief that the natural world can be made better fit both of these characteristics.
  • Georgiana: Georgiana represents the finite, imperfect nature of humanity. This can be seen chiefly through Hawthorne's description of the birthmark itself: "It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain." We are also told that Alymer sees the birthmark as "the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death." Thus, Alymer's quest for perfection and enlightenment via science is directly at odds with the fact that his wife, despite her beauty, is fallible to human error and mortality.
  • Aminidab: Alymer's quirky assistant is set up as a direct foil to Alymer's intellectualism by representing the physical, earthly nature of people. Hawthorne describes Aminidab as almost caveman-like: "With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature." Beyond this description, it is also important to look at his reaction to Georgiana's death. His response of laughter suggests that he is mocking Alymer's efforts to overcome the reality of the physical world that imperfection cannot be tamed.

As a result, the allegorical representations of each character perfectly fit within the overall thematic scope of the story. Try reading through the story again with these ideas in mind and looking for quotes of your own that illustrate each of these three concepts.

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What concepts do the three characters in "The Birthmark" represent in its allegory?

The narrator tells us that Aylmer, Georgiana's husband, "had devoted himself . . . too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion." He represents human pride and men of science: Aylmer's confidence in his own scientific abilities convinces him that he can remove the birthmark that Nature (or God) bestowed on his wife. He tells her, "'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!'" Aylmer feels that he can perfect Nature, that he can improve on something Nature, and by extension God, created. He suffers from severe hubris, a terrible pride that claims his wife.

Aylmer tells Georgiana, "'you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.'" Georgiana, then, represents human imperfection. Her red, hand-shaped birthmark prevents her from being "one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of the flaw." Such a thing, however—a perfect and flawless human being—is not possible. Natural things are marked by imperfection; our mortality might be termed an imperfection—we grow old, wither, and eventually die and decay. Perfection can only be achieved by the divine, and so when Aylmer successfully removes Georgiana's birthmark, he overreaches and tampers with Nature, and his wife must perish because human beings simply cannot be perfect. It is not our nature. The birthmark "was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions . . ."

Aminadab, Aylmer's laboratory assistant, seems to represent faith or men of faith. He is named for a Biblical high priest, and he feels that "'If [Georgiana] were [his] wife, [he'd] never part with that birthmark.'" He seems to understand that it is her birthmark, a symbol in itself, that makes her human. When the draught prepared by Aylmer begins to work on his wife's face, the assistant breaks into a "gross, hoarse chuckle . . . Aminadab's expression of delight." It is true that Aylmer's science succeeds in removing the birthmark, but Aylmer's pride outstripped his moral sense, and his wife's life is forfeit. Aminadab seems to understand what Aylmer cannot: that humankind is not a more perfect creator than Nature, or God.

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How does Hawthorne use symbolism in character references in The Birthmark?

Hawthorne's short story "The Birthmark," which was first published in a magazine called The Pioneer in 1843 and later included in Hawthorne's Mosses from an Old Manse in 1846, was part of American literature during the Romantic Period, the characteristics of which included the debate about the primacy of nature or science. In this story, as your question suggests, we are presented with symbols that the characters perceive and symbols that we perceive.

Hawthorne introduces us to the conflict in his description of Aylmer, the scientist, and his decision to marry:

He had so totally given himself to scientific studies that he could not be weakened by a second love. His love for his young wife could only be the stronger of the two if it could link itself with his love of science.

We are on notice, from the beginning of the story, that science is Aylmer's all-consuming focus even in the choice of a wife and that the person he marries will be secondary to Aylmer's love of science unless she can also love science as he does. This is the foreshadowing of an obsession, and Aylmer will himself become a symbol of obsession.

The small birthmark in the shape of a delicate hand on Georgiana's cheek—which some admirers see as the mark of a "magical fairy" and some others ignore—creates a very different reaction in Aylmer:

... Nature made you so perfectly that this small defect shocks me as being a sign of earthly imperfection.

That the birthmark becomes a symbol for Aylmer of Nature's imperfection is clear when Hawthorne tells us that, for Aylmer, the birthmark is not merely a symbol of Nature's imperfection but represents much more:

Aylmer saw the mark as a sign of his wife's eventual sadness, sickness, and death. Soon, the birthmark caused him more pain than Georgiana's beauty had ever given him pleasure.

The physical reality of this otherwise inconsequential birthmark becomes, for Aylmer the scientist, the symbol of Georgiana's mortality and, perhaps more important, the birthmark grows in his mind as an imperfection that blots out Georgiana's beauty. The birthmark is both a symbol of Georgiana's beautiful nature and Aylmer's obsession with his version of perfection.

Georgiana, finally desperate to please Aylmer, agrees to allow him to remove the birthmark, but as she awaits the results of his various attempts, she reads his notes about all of his experiments and "she could not help see that many of his experiments had ended in failure." Although she is concerned, her trust in Aylmer is complete, and her desire to please her husband, who is so obsessed with the birthmark that he dreams about it, is more powerful than her reservations.

At this point, another character appears—Aminadab, Aylmer's helper, who adds another level of symbolism to the story. He is described as a man who is skilled in constructing Aylmer's laboratory equipment without knowing the principles involved in the experiments, and he has unusual physical characteristics:

With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical nature.

Hawthorne, in exploring the difference between science and nature, has given us the picture of natural man, a symbol of un-reconstructed Nature, covered with "indescribable earthiness"—the physical opposite of Aylmer, who is described as having a "slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element." These physical symbols of the tension between nature and science are unmistakable, and this tension is made manifest by the vastly different physical characteristics of each man.

The birthmark, the symbol of Nature's creative force, is pitted against the power of science to control Nature, and Aylmer's failure—a failure that has disastrous consequences for Georgiana—is itself symbolic of a struggle that Aylmer, despite his vast scientific knowledge, cannot win, a deserving victim of both his obsession and the power of Nature.

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