The Birthmark by: Nathaniel Hawthorne, was a short story with scientist, who left his studies and experiments behind to marry a beautiful woman. The scientist’s name was Aylmer, and the wife’s name was Georgiana. Georgiana is very beautiful and is close to perfect, but on her face there is a birthmark. Many believed it to be charming and that it does not take away from her beauty. But Aylmer became obsessed with removing it. He thought that it defiles her beauty. Eventually Georgiana agreed to risk her life in order to remove the birthmark, so they move to Aylmer’s laboratory. Aylmer displays all his various creations and experiments to Georgina, some of which are ruined by her presence, like the fast growing flower that withered when she touched it. Aylmer had a lust for perfection and was willing to do anything to achieve it, the issue was that he has always fallen short of perfection. This is because true perfection is impossible. He became obsessed, and convinced himself that birthmark was not merely cosmetic and on the surface, instead he believed that it penetrated deep into her heart and soul. So rather than using a potion he already had to remove cosmetic imperfections, he decided he needed to create a potion that removed all of the birthmark that was deep inside her as well. She drank it and the birthmark disappeared in her sleep, but when she awoke she died.
While I do see the feminist point of view of this story, I interpreted it differently. I thought that the story showed that the lust for perfection will ruin us as well as our relationships. We want ourselves and those who we value to be the best we/they can. This is good, but is detrimental if we try to force ourselves or others to do things that are outside of what is possible for them/us. Georgiana was as close to perfect physical beauty that she could possibly reach, but Aylmer had a lust for perfection and forced her to go further, despite the fact that she already hit her limit and was unable to go any farther. The result of this lust for perfection was her death, which symbolically can be the death of a relationship or confidence in yourself.
While I personally did not read this story as a feminist one, I think it still supports the feminist point of view. I do not believe the overall message was to support sexism, so I do not think that the story can be used to refute Nina Baym’s argument. There is also plenty of passages in the story that would support support her point of view. Like the face that it could be interpreted as Aylmer setting an unreasonable standard for Georgina’s beauty, and viewing her as disposable. He was willing to take the risk of her dying, simply to enhance her physical beauty.
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