During the 19th century, Romanticism and Transcendentalism
became known for representing the way life should be seen as. Nathaniel Hawthorne, a prolific writer, wrote
“The Birthmark” that became published in 1843.
He described how at a time period
during his life, humans faced human flaws that prevented them from seeing the beauty
of things. In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer
and Georgiana, two people in love, started to have problems based on something
Georgiana was unable to prevent from happening.
Georgiana’s birthmark disgusted Aylmer in ways where he began to reject
her in every way possible. Things that
appeared from nature or god shouldn’t prevent someone from living; it’s the way
things as little as a birthmark, are seen from a person’s point of view. Throughout the Romanticism and
Transcendentalism movement, people began to view things differently.
During
the Romantic period, people began to express their individual interpretation in
a way with passion and admiration.
Hawthorne created the characters Aylmer and Georgiana to represent
people that sometimes thought otherwise.
Georgiana was born with a birthmark that set her apart from the rest of
the people she knew. The birthmark was
in the shape similar to a human hand which led most people to believe “some
fairy at her birth-hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s cheek”
(Hawthorne 219). It represented a mark
that led to all human beings being different and individual. It was something Georgiana was born with that
set her apart from the others. With God’s
magic touch, he expresses the idea that nature is an unexplainable beauty that
people should learn to adore. Of course
not everyone thinks this way; Aylmer believes that the birthmark is some sort
of distraction to the human eye. Hawthorne portrays the birthmark as something Georgiana is being criticized about. Her husband, Aylmer, thinks that the birthmark should disappear as soon as possible. “No, dearest 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” (Hawthorne 219). Aylmer came out to believe that Georgiana was “almost” perfect if only she didn’t have the birthmark. He failed to see the “beauty” in the “beauty mark”. This led to people going against human nature. People want their lives to be perfect in a way they believed it should be.
Feeling
imperfect is what tore Georgiana down. She
felt like she wasn’t good enough and tried to please Aylmer by going along with
anything he told her to do. Hawthorn
exemplified that people who thought differently about nature and God, made
other people feel less empowered if they didn’t look a certain way. “Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with
intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the
birth-mark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong
convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.”
(Hawthorne 223). Georgiana felt self-conscious
about herself because now the man she loves can’t even accept her for the way
she was born. The Transcendentalists strongly believed that the human spirit cannot be free if it was restrained by conformity. They also believed that God’s creations like nature were meant to happen for a reason. God created everything on Earth for a reason that shouldn’t even be questioned. The birthmark on Georgiana’s face was placed by god that shouldn’t be tampered with. But, because Aylmer tampered with God’s creation, Georgiana died in place to show him that what he had all along was possibly the most beautiful thing on Earth.
Even
though the human spirit is something human beings cannot physically see, it
doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. “One of
the biggest mistakes that humanity makes is oppose nature” (Hawthorne). He describes life as something every
individual should treasure regardless to what one may call imperfections. What Hawthorne tries to teach while writing “The
Birthmark” is that we as human beings cannot accept something other than what
we think is perfect. It is a natural instinct
to try to find the ideal things that make our lives perfect the way we want it
to be.
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