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Tiffani Douglas
ENGL 203B
Dr. Messer
9 December 2008
Symbolism of the Characters in “The Birth-Mark”
On the surface, the point of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth-Mark” appears
to be that perfection cannot exist in a world of human depravity. The symbolism in the story
provides depth to this idea and meaning behind its incredible climax. In Hawthorne’s short story
“The Birth-Mark”, one of the most prevalent themes is the relationship between the spiritual and
physical worlds. Aylmer, Georgiana, and Aminidab can all be interpreted as symbols that
meaningfully convey either the conflict or the connection between the spiritual world and
physical world.
Aylmer is one such representation. This character creates a paradox in the story because
Aylmer is portrayed as a man of science who depends on reason to find the answers to life. Yet,
Hawthorne noticeably connects him with the spiritual world, which is the antithesis of reason.
Georgiana’s investigation of Aylmer’s library indicates this connection plainly. When sifting
through his books, Georgiana finds works by the philosophers of the Middle Ages. She becomes
aware that
all these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with
some of their credulity, and therefore are believed, and perhaps imagined themselves, to
have acquired from the investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a
sway over the spiritual world. (Birth-Mark 1327)
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Hawthorne classifies Aylmer in this group of naturalists. The basis of science that characterizes
these naturalists is the idea that science can “make new worlds” for the scientist (Hawthorne
1320). He seeks to blend the spiritual world and the physical world through science.
Robert A. Heilman is the author of an article entitled “Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’:
Science as Religion.” The article argues that Aylmer elevates his science to a religion, thus
intermingling the two. Heilman says, “although…he actually puts his finger upon the realities
which the mature man must come to terms with, his faith leads him to feel, as we have seen, ‘that
he could draw a magic circle around her within which no evil might intrude’” (424-425).
Hawthorne asserts that Aylmer was using science as a means of achieving spiritual perfection.
As Heilman points out, the problem with this is that Aylmer “does not accept dualism at all: for
him, spirit is not distinct from matter, but is the perfecting of matter” (425). He is attempting to
connect the spiritual world with the physical world in a way that deprives nature of all significant
value.
Hawthorne shows Aylmer’s unique use of science throughout the story. One instance of
this occurs when Aylmer responds to Georgiana’s distress upon waking from her seclusion.
Aylmer uses his science to dazzle Georgiana by conjuring “airy figures, absolutely bodiless
ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty” for Georgiana to marvel at (Hawthorne 1325).
Georgiana responds to this phenomenon by believing that “the illusion was almost perfect
enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world”
(Hawthorne 1325). Aylmer has taken science and extended it beyond natural explanation and
into the spiritual realm. Alfred S. Reid is author of “Hawthorne’s Humanism: ‘The Birth-Mark’
and Sir Kenelm Digby.” Reid describes Aylmer’s use of science by saying that “Aylmer
is…oriented toward the intellectual, constantly aspiring ‘toward the infinite’ and constantly
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spiritualizing all material details above the earthly in his aim toward the ideal” (343). This is the
goal Aylmer works toward in the story; he is seeking to “spiritualize,” or perfect, the natural
world.
Hawthorne reveals another way in which Aylmer’s science connects the spiritual and
physical worlds. When sifting through Aylmer’s records of his various experiments, Georgiana
notices that Aylmer’s diary “was the sad confession, and continual exemplification, of the shortcomings of the composite man—the spirit burthened with clay and working in matter—and of
the despair that assails the higher nature, at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly
part” (Hawthorne 1328). In this way, Aylmer represents a Gnostic worldview, for he views
himself as a “spirit burthened with clay.” He uses the natural order to aspire toward the spiritual
dimension of the world. By doing this, he is debasing nature and elevating the spirit. His way of
transcending the natural world is to use science to detect spiritual elements in the physical world.
Aylmer also spiritualizes Georgiana. He believes that she is “fit for heaven without
tasting death” (Hawthorne 1330). Reid gives reasoning behind this view Aylmer has of
Georgiana by stating that Aylmer illustrates “a belief in a mystical ladder of ascent to perfection,
the creation of heaven on this earth, a metaphysical identity of matter and spirit or an occult
correspondence that blurs the dual distinctions of mortal and celestial, present and eternal” (348).
The reasoning behind Aylmer’s attempt to perfect Georgiana is the desire to bring heaven to
earth in the form of a perfect woman.
In “The Birth-Mark,” Aylmer’s ability to perfect
Georgiana would prove that his science can “blur the dual distinctions” between the physical and
the spiritual.
When his science succeeds in erasing Georgiana’s birth-mark, he makes an interesting
observation about the occurrence. Aylmer exclaims, “Matter and Spirit—Earth and Heaven—
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have both done their part in this” (Hawthorne 1331). He realizes that the natural aspect of
science as well as the supernatural part played a role in the disappearance of the birth-mark. It is
clear from the passage that Aylmer symbolizes the blending of the spiritual and physical aspects
of the world.
If Aylmer is a symbol of the connection between the spiritual and physical worlds, then
his assistant, Aminidab, is Aylmer’s foil. In “The Birth-Mark”, Aminidab represents the natural
world cut off entirely from the spirit-matter duality that Aylmer’s concept of the world
represents. By creating the character Aminidab, Hawthorne is illustrating the conflict that arises
between the spiritual and the physical dimensions when the notion of human depravity becomes
the crux of life. Alfred Reid explores this idea in some depth. Aminidab represents Hawthorne’s
speculation that focusing on human depravity results in the inability to see the beauty of the
spiritual world. Hawthorne’s description of Aminidab shows this, for
with his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness
that incrusted him, [Aminidab] seemed to represent man’s physical nature; while
Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual
element” (Hawthorne 1324).
The contrast is startling. While Aylmer’s physique seems appealing, the very earthliness of
Aminidab is repulsive. The description shows the beauty of heaven represented in Aylmer and
the ugliness of earth represented in Aminidab (Reid 349).
Another critic of “The Birth-Mark,” W.R. Thompson, investigates the role of Aminidab
even more closely. In an article entitled “Aminidab in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’”, Thompson
notes that “on the vehicular level [Aminidab] is the unimaginative assistant and subordinate of
the intellectual Aylmer; on a more complex level he typifies religion subverted to the ends of
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science” (414). Once again, the paradox is clear. Aylmer attempts to spiritualize his science, but
in the process, he completely suppresses the spiritual element of Aminidab.
This relationship between Aylmer and Aminidab results in the utter dehumanization of
Aminidab. In the story, Aylmer refers to Aminidab as a “human machine” and an “earthly”
(1329, 1331). Aylmer’s dictatorship over Aminidab reduces him to the earthly essence that
characterizes him in the story. This also conveys the conflict between the spiritual and the
physical worlds. When Aylmer tries to reconcile the two worlds with science, he inevitably
terminates the spiritual nature of Aminidab. The character of Aminidab demonstrates that
Aylmer’s attempt to achieve earthly perfection is futile.
Aminidab’s response to Georgiana’s birth-mark also reveals that he symbolizes the
physical world. Aminidab makes the assertion that “if she were my wife, I’d never part with that
birth-mark” (Hawthorne 1324). Earlier in the story, Hawthorne describes the significance of the
birth-mark as “the ineludible gripe, in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly
mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest and even with the very brutes, like whom
their visible frames return to dust” (Hawthorne 1322). For Aminidab, therefore, the birth-mark
represents Georgiana as she should be—a part of the natural world. Since the birth-mark is the
only imperfection in Georgiana, it is the one thing that Aminidab believes she should not be
deprived of. Not only does Aminidab tolerate the birth-mark, he venerates it as surely as Aylmer
despises it. The birth-mark represents the physical state that Aminidab embodies entirely.
Aminidab represents the complete separation of the physical and the spiritual worlds. In
contrast, Aylmer attempts to fuse these two worlds together. The character of Georgiana is a
mediator between these two extremes, for her character symbolizes the dual nature of creation;
both the spiritual and physical worlds are distinct parts of one whole. Reid says that “she is the
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best that earth and heaven can offer here and now. She is humanity at its finest…She can
appreciate both the ideal and the actual” (Reid 351). Hawthorne’s humanist sympathies shine
through in Georgiana (Reid 351). Reid goes on to add that “she possesses the finite, mortal
limitations of humanity but all the grandeur, too” (Reid 351). Hawthorne suggests that although
Georgiana possesses the “fatal flaw of humanity”, she is still as close to perfection as she can be
(Hawthorne 1322).
The birth-mark is Georgiana’s only link to the physical world, and thus it illustrates her
connection between the spiritual and the physical. Elizabeth R. Napier, author of the article
“‘Scheidekunstler’: The Pattern of Union and Separation in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark,’”
addresses Georgiana’s dual nature. The article describes the birth-mark as “the center of her
reconciliatory nature, which joins her simultaneously to the world of men and the realm of the
fairies” (32). After Georgiana has drunk the potion, Aylmer realizes that “the fatal hand had
grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union
with a mortal frame” (Hawthorne 1331). When this bond was broken, Georgiana became
separated from the physical world and died. Thus, Georgiana’s birth-mark symbolizes the
conflict between the spiritual and physical worlds; perfection, embodied by Georgiana, cannot
exist in the physical world. Georgiana’s death resolves this conflict, and at the end of “The BirthMark” she becomes a fully spiritual being and ascends to heaven.
The final irony of the “The Birth-mark” comes in the last few sentences of the story.
Hawthorn makes it clear that Aylmer attempted to blend the spiritual and physical worlds in the
wrong way, for he had not yet reached “a profounder wisdom” (Hawthorne 1331). Hawthorne
informs the reader that if he had, he would have accepted Georgiana as the best that human kind
could offer. The happiness she would have brought him “would have woven his mortal life of the
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self-same texture with the celestial” (Hawthorne 1331). Had he accepted Georgiana’s dual
nature, he would have achieved what he desired—a blending of the spiritual and natural world.
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Works Cited
Baym, Nina. Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: Norton & Company, Ltd.
2007.
Heilman, Robert B. “Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’: Science as Religion.” Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s Tales. Ed. James McIntosh. New York, NY: W. W. Norton and Company Ltd.,
1987. 421-427.
Napier, Elizabeth R. “Scheidekunstler”: The Pattern of Union and Separation in Hawthorne’s
‘The Birthmark.’” South Atlantic Bulletin. 41.4 (1976): 32-35. JSTOR. South Atlantic Modern
Language Association. 16 November 2008 <http://www.jstor.org>.
Reid, Alfred S. “Hawthorne’s Humanism: ‘The Birth-Mark’ and Sir Kenelm Digby.” American
Literature. 38.8 (1966): 337-51. JSTOR. Duke University Press. 16 November 2008
<http://www.jstor.org>.
Thompson, W.R. “Aminidab in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark.’” Modern Language Notes. 70.6
(1955): 413-415. JSTOR. Johns Hopkins University Press. 16 November 2008
<http://www.jstor.org>.