The Birthmark“Murdering a wife then getting away with it” is the way Judith Fetterley described the story of Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’. It revolves around the obsession of the main character, Aylmer, to remove his wife’s ‘birthmark’. He considered the ‘birthmark’ to be a blemish to his wife’s perfection.
Hawthorne argued that such obsession posed the intent and the sublime message of woman eradication. Hawthorne is primarily concerned on the Hawthorne’s attempt to expose the various imperfections of women as a man’s disguised effort to eliminate women.In a statement Aylmer expressed his motivation, ‘I feel myself fully competent to render this cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work!’. This seemed to be the cue of the ‘moral of the story’ which stands something close to ‘perfection cannot be attained on earth’ but looking at it in a more feministic sense in relation to power struggle, one will see clearly as with regards to Fetterley’s analysis that there is a deeper issue being tackled in the story.
Personally, I agree with Fetterley’s interpretation. The mere use of a story to express an opinion or a ‘moral’ is rather too lengthy and may become subjected to various interpretations, thus another purpose must be hidden in between the lines. With Hawthorne’s depiction of woman being seemingly perfect confirms that the story is not mainly and solely an expression of moral but a ‘disguised’ presentation of men’s insecurity and sense of imperfection upon himself.Such intentions are described by Fetterley as ‘exploring the sources of men’s compulsion to idealize women Hawthorne is writing a story about the sickness of men, not a story about the flawed and imperfect nature of women’.
Another statement worth noting is the ultimate goal of Aylmer’s experiments which moves towards the creation of life‘Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth…that our…mother…shows us nothing but results…permits us…to mar…seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make’. Fetterley believes that this line shows an ‘undercurrent of jealousy, hostility and frustration towards a…female force’.I cannot help but agree that such interpretation regarding the story clearly represents that it contains perspectives that promotes an idealized woman and how men looks at and treat woman. It also portrays woman being subjective and gullible to please men.
It reflects how men shape female desires. It contains the motives for perfection hiding the aspiration for power; being able to correct nature ‘convince men that he is better than nature’.The story also depicts the profound way that men ‘disguise themselves’ as someone ‘not emotional’ concealing their true selves with a façade of illusions and self-deceptions. In the story, Aylmer conceal his emotional side by being a ‘man of science’ having the ‘genius’ to even try to counter nature.
Although all of his experiments landed as failures, his display of objective knowledge gives him a higher authority or power over his wife. This is evident in the way by which the story ended, with his wife, Georgina submitting to his wants even at the costs of her death.The hatred of woman evident in the story as discussed by Fetterley covers man’s attempts to capture the power that both nature and woman share in common, the power to create. Such power is not available to men making him feel inferior.
Fetterley also argues that the story provides insights on man’s ability to disguise ‘hatred as love, murder as idealization and failure as successes’.In this regard, I believe that Fetterley is right in her reading of the story. Man is indeed capable of masking himself with another identity apart from which he really is and what he really intends as can be seen on Aylmer’s vision of success marked by an inescapable failure, for his attempt to win over nature only led to a creation of death. Apparently, this creates an image that Aylmer is someone who would do anything to exceed nature and woman, even at the cost of death to prove his success.
When Fetterley accounts that female was envisioned as ‘hideous and unnatural’ in the story, she mentioned the ‘cult of female beauty’ which create an idealization of women that makes her look ‘monstrous’ in her natural form. Women were portrayed to be hated on their natural form, just as in the story, when a birthmark represents an imperfection, a thing that may cause her to be hated and thus needs a remedy, which she will be wiling to accept even in expense of her own life. Fetterley showed that man posses such power over women that he can dictate and influence her outlook, he can even manage and control her life to his liking, making her a possession or a thing that owned by him.Work CitedFetterley, J.
The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Indiana University Press. 1981.
