In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1843 short story "The Birthmark," Aminadab is Aylmer's servant, who does Aylmer's bidding in the laboratory. He is described as having "great mechanical readiness" to assist Aylmer, but he possesses no intellectual ability to understand the particulars of Aylmer's scientific pursuits. He supplies the brawn and the apparently emotionless capability to do whatever Aylmer wants without question, though he does mutter to himself that if Georgiana were his wife, he would not "part with that birthmark."

Aminadab seems to have a sort of morality; he clearly doesn't approve of Aylmer's obsession with "perfecting" Georgiana's beauty by removing the birthmark that he finds so troubling. He grunts in monosyllables as Aylmer orders him about in making preparations for the procedure. When the operation fails and Georgiana dies, Aminadab is heard chuckling, and the implication is that he is bitterly amused by Aylmer's folly. It could be argued that Aminadab, whose name is of Biblical origin, represents a man who, for all his servile behavior and lack of intellect, is one who understands the terrible risk of playing God, as Aylmer could be accused of doing. Perhaps Aylmer represents the soulless epitome of science, and Aminadab, the manifestation of the moral or spiritual.