Dichotomy In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

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In the world we live in things can sometimes appear to be separated, disconnect and even paradoxical in nature. Life and death, light and dark, good and evil, but what about science and literature? “The Birthmark” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1848. The short story is about an eminent alchemist whose first love is his work. The story opens with Aylmer persuading a beautiful woman to become his wife. At which point Aylmer notices a small birthmark on her check, and becomes obsessed with this most minute rosy hand that graces her cheek. The story follows Aylmer’s attempt to remove this birthmark, which he states is the only sign of imperfection in here being. The story itself is written using much the same techniques employed by …show more content…

While Georgiana is waiting in the boudoir for Aylmer to finish working in the lab, she sees that Aylmer has been reading books by Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus. Albertus Magnus was a German catholic bishop that according to legend discovered the philosopher’s stone, but was known for his work in alchemy, astrology, and the occult. Cornelius Agrippa was a German magician, occult writer, astrologer, and alchemist. Paracelsus was a German alchemist, astrologer, and occultist. So, we can see that Hawthorne chose to include these three authors, all of whom are German occult alchemist. These German occult writers from the 13th and 15th century not only played a role in this story, but their literature was also important in the founding of such organizations as the Thule Society. The Thule society was founded in 1918, it was a German occultist organization that was instrumental in creating the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Works Party) and in the creation of the occult ideology that Nazi German was founded on. Sometimes people try and make a distinction between alchemy and magick. Often stating magick involves using demons or other spiritual forces to accomplish a desired goal, while alchemy is focused more on physical materials. I do not think that …show more content…

Hawthorne states that Aylmer was “not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty, weather of soul or sense” (Hawthorne) because it was “the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death” (Hawthorne). But we can see from the beginning of the story, Georgiana did not see the birthmark in this way, see saw it as a kind of charm. Hawthorne shows us here that these are Aylmer’s feelings that he has externalized onto the birthmark. And as we can see from the ending of the story were Hawthorne states 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 moral frame” (Hawthorne). I think that this makes it rather clear that the birthmark was the imprint left on Georgiana by the hand of God when she was created in his image, and for this reason it so frightened

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