Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

Christian religions believe that God created man in his own image, with the exception of the inclusion of original sin in humans. Humanity is marked out by one universal factor: a common imperfection. Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates this necessary imperfection in dramatic detail in his short story entitled The Birthmark.

Additionally, the author addresses a variety of issues, including embracing science to the point of religious fanaticism, the idea of physical expression of spiritual defects, and whether the idea that man can create perfection - when he himself is imperfect - verges on blasphemy.

When Pygmalion disdained the prostitutes and dishonest women around him, the goddess Aphrodite honored his devotion and piety by granting his wish for a flawless woman; his devotion to pure love was the ultimate honor to the goddess, and the Greek gods rewarded dedication with wishes granted. Christianity does not function along the same terms; the Christian 'ask and ye shall receive' does not directly correlate with the ancient Greek 'if you do this for me I'll do this for you.' Still Hawthorne reflects on, even if he does not directly parallel, the story of Pygmalion and Galatea.

Like Pygmalion, The Birthmark's main character Aylmer becomes obsessed with perfect beauty to the point of complete rejection of any physical or moral imperfection. Pygmalion carves a perfect statue and prays for her to come to life; his wish is granted and he and Galatea live happily ever after, devoted to each other. Hawthorne writes within the confines of Christianity, which only once allowed a semi-divine being to live amongst humanity. Within these confines, nothing imperfect could construct anything perfect; being fundamentally imperfect prohibits even the ability to completely know perfection.

Aylmer views his wife as close to perfection, approaching it, and seeks to remove a tiny physical mark which he feels is the visible expression of that streak of imperfection which waxes and wanes, but universally exists; her birthmark is the only bar to her achievement of perfection. One gains a sense that Aylmer, however unknowingly, commits a grievous sin, simultaneously illustrating his own imperfection, and highlighting a fault of the cult of science, wherein humans presume the ability to acquire complete knowledge. Christianity teaches that in order to prepare for the afterlife, every effort should be made at attaining perfect moral goodness.

There is a danger in constantly seeking perfection, however, in that the only perfect being is God; any man who would truly attain perfection is in effect rejecting his humanity. When Aylmer seeks to perfect a fellow human being, he can do so, but only at the cost of ridding his own wife of her humanity. Since she is not in fact Jesus, she cannot exist amongst humanity if she is not human, and she cannot be human if she is perfect.

She therefore dies, and Aylmer has simultaneously succeeded and failed. For the first time, he accomplishes exactly what he set out to do, by perfecting what he viewed as flawed, and he learns too late that not only is it not his place to do so, but that his own imperfections blinded him to the gift that he had in her near-perfect state, in her rare spirit which comes as close as anything might to perfection outside of heaven.

Hawthorne addresses a number of smaller points along with his attention to larger morals, including a hearty critique of the over-application of science. At one point Hawthorne states that Aylmer 'felt that he could draw a magic circle round [Georgiana], within which no evil might intrude.' At this point Aylmer has elevated the mechanisms of science to something all-powerful and indestructible. But science is man's creation, his imperfect quest for knowledge and quest for perfection. When Aylmer believes he has constructed a scientific process which has the power to remove that singular blemish on Georgiana's check, thereby perfecting her, he has himself sinned.

He presumes upon God's domain, says Hawthorne, and his obsession with perfection only amplifies his imperfection, mocking Puritanical ideals. Aylmer also illustrates a problem that philosophers often have with scientists. Men often view the mechanisms of science as their own created device, and their pride and confidence in this path of discovery often overwhelms their sense of spirituality. Some scientists come to believe that eventually the answer to anything may be found, and that science holds within it all the tools to perfect all the shortcomings of human existence through the discovery of perfect knowledge. Whether the notion that the perfect is immortal is a valid argument is a matter of debate.

The notion that living creatures are always a step or two behind physical perfection is the fundamental basis of evolution, yet the Buddhists feel that those humans who reach some spiritual perfection as bodhisattvas do rarely exist among us to teach and guide. But Hawthorne, in The Birthmark as well as in other stories, always utilizes some visible marker to denote a spiritual quirk or difference. Hawthorne asserts that no one may exist wholly perfect in mind and body; some flaw must exist somewhere, and perfection cannot exist in a living being.

Perfection is completion, a finishing of some journey or construction, and human life is a journey from birth to death, the construction of a soul beginning at birth and progressing toward death, hopefully approaching the complete, the finished, the divine. The overwhelming irony of the story, and the inherent paradox of the human experience, is the welding together within human life of the divine spark of the soul with physical frailty. Aylmer fails to recognize that within Georgiana that divine spark was only barely hidden behind a tiny mark upon her cheek, when in most people the divinity is much more well hidden behind various imperfections.

In his wife he could have witnessed a superb example of spiritual beauty, and been content to revel in that rarity, but he was blind to this expression of what to expect in the hereafter. Instead of faithfully working toward a goal of perfecting within himself, and truly seeing in Georgiana the beauty of a spirit already closely approaching this perfection, he was ultimately unable 'to find the perfect Future in the present.' Overwhelming pride in his ingenuity and knowledge caused Aylmer to believe that he could do his wife Georgiana a favor by finishing her, perfecting her.

But Hawthorne says that we should instead continue along our paths, seeking within ourselves that spark of divinity to satisfy ourselves until we have progressed far enough to take the final step within ourselves toward that divinity, and leave mortal life.