~~ Responses to Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" ~~

My experience with assigning "The Birthmark" is that Hawthorne's elevated 19th century diction and syntax can sometimes turn students away. It doesn't sound natural; it's "difficult." Some students seem to completely give up on reading the story, and they wait for class, or they just tune the story out completely. If you're thinking I must be pretty stubborn (or stupid) to continue to assign this story knowing that many students have had that kind of reaction, I wouldn't argue with you. The reason I'm stubborn (but hopefully not stupid) is that I strongly believe in this story's relevance, its timelessness. I think it raises some really interesting, throught-provoking questions about marriage, relationships, beauty, perfectionism, the relationship between self-image and happiness, submissiveness and the suspension of intelligence, how it can be fatal to let others do your thinking for you, how shallow some people can be and why that's wrong. Hawthorne saw something timeless in the sensational, true story he dug up as the source for his fiction. We're still questioning whether science "plays God," and whether its possible to "improve nature." We still harbor, in our contemporary collective psyche, an image of the scientist as the mad wizard mixing magic potions in his tube-lined laboratory, feverishly reaching for something, whether good or ill. The goals of science have been wrapped in controversy for a long time now. Although our technology has advanced beyond anything the 19th century might have dreamed, the ethical questions remain the same. Why, exactly, are we trying to engineer our genes and our food? Why are we cloning plants and animals and perhaps people? Where is drive to improve nature leading us? What's motivating it? What harm might come of these practices?

Here are some questions you've raised, along with students from previous semesters who've read and studied this story. Which ones do you find most interesting? How might you begin to answer some of these?

• Why did Aylmer marry Georgiana if he hated the birthmark so much? Why does he want to remove it now?
• What were Aylmer's real motives? Was there more to it than is obvious?
• If Aylmer really loved Georgiana, why couldn't he look past her birthmark?
• Shouldn't people love their partners for who they are and what they look like without needing them to change?
• Is Aylmer, inventing this elixir, trying to play God?
• Is the way a person looks connected to who she/he is?
• How far should a person be willing to go to improve an imperfection?
• Why is Aminadab laughing when Georgiana dies? Why isn't he sad?
• Why couldn't Aylmer accept his wife the way she was, and why did she give in to him?
• What is love? What is a reasonable risk to take for someone you love?

• What does it mean to be "imperfect"?
• Why do we allow others to have such an impact on our self-image?
• Did Aylmer learn anything by the end of the story?
• What is more important, perfection or life?
• How far will a person go to achieve success?
• Why was Aylmer so disturbed by the birthmark, when others considered it a "charm"? What does he find so unacceptable about it?
• Why did Aylmer notice the birthmark only after he married Georgiana? Why didn't he address it before marriage, or earlier in their marriage?
• What is beauty? Who gets to define what beauty is?
• Should people mess with nature?
• When does science go a step too far?
• Why was Georgiana so weak and vulnerable to her husband's need to change her? Why did she give in?
• How did Georgiana really die?
• Did Aylmer love Georgiana as much as he loved science?
• Did Aylmer's obsession with the birthmark reflect his obsession with science or his obsession with his wife?
• If Aylmer knew the potion would kill his wife, but still remove the birthmark, would he give it to her anyway?