TRAGIC FLAW IN HAWTHORNES THE BIRTHMARK 1

LITERATURE IN ENGLISH II
Ma. Alejandra Sandoval Pineda
20101165058
March 9
th
, 2014


An expository essay:
Tragic flaw in Hawthornes the birthmark


In literature a tragic flaw refers in plain words when the main character ends up dead or defeated
a characteristic feature of the heroes of Nathaniel Hawthornes short stories, Young Goodman
Brown, The Ministers Black Veil, and The Birthmark. However this concept is even more
extensive and best explained in terms of Hamartia. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica
that word can be understood as an inherent defect in the hero of a tragedy or a moral flaw, other
sources point out Hamartia as an error in judgment or accident that may lead the hero to ruin as
a result. From The Birthmark the reader can notice how the story starts with a happy romance
and end in tragedy due to the actions and attitudes performed by Aylmer, the hero.
The tragic flaw in The Birthmark is addressed to the religion and science, specifically
the morality and sin (to defy nature, to play God), highlighted issues in novels and short stories
of the American writer, The theme of sin, especially secret sin. Hawthorne was fascinated with
the idea of sin and punishment (Smith, 2011).
Aylmer, the hero is a scientist and philosopher passionate about his labor, until one day
he develops a passion for a woman without neglecting his love of science, he thinks he can
intersperse his two loves, thus indicates the narrator:
TRAGIC FLAW IN HAWTHORNES THE BIRTHMARK 2
He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from
them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but
it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the
latter to his own. (Hawthorne, 1843, para. 1)
The passion of Aylmer for science and his wife Georgiana were his greatest strength to
be a great scientist but also his greatest weakness can keep his affair with her. His pride by
scientific advances and his pursuit of perfection were overshadowing and underestimating the
power of nature, it was growing in arrogance and overconfidence:
"Ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but never on yours. No, dearest
Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect,
which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of
earthly imperfection." (Hawthorne, 1843, para. 5)
Such arrogance is the reason why the romance became in tragedy. Aylmer as devote
scientist had been influenced by discoveries of the 19
th
century. For him the nature can be
modified through science, nature is flawed and man can improve it. In a deeper sense, human life
is imperfect because of the death, also the sin, imperfection is a symbol of the mortal life and one
of the purposes of science is prolonging life; so perfection is seen as eternity, symbol of
immortality. In the case of Aylmer he is married with a woman he considers almost perfect,
according to him she is so perfect that is insupportable see in her the birth-mark in her check,
because that just emphasizes just a small imperfection that damages the beauty of a perfect work
of art, something that recalled the mortal condition of Aylmers wife as the life of any other
human, a fact that made of the birthmark a nightmare for the couple as describes the story:
It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on
all her productions The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality
clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest,
and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner,
selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre
imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble
TRAGIC FLAW IN HAWTHORNES THE BIRTHMARK 3
and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.
(Hawthorne, 1843, para. 9)
Such symbol of mortality, such defect of nature in a work nearly perfect could be
enhanced by the hand of a man of science as Aylmer who had one privilege in the story, The
privilege of a mortal man who is in possession of something good but wanting something better
and in an attempt to improve it ends up destroying it (Zanger, 1983).
At the precise moment when the hero of the story was get carried away by his arrogance,
the romance story between the scientist and his nearly perfect wife began to break loose in a
series of events that would result in a tragedy with the death of his beloved Georgiana. So
throughout this story can be also seen to Georgina as a heroine whose kindness and love for her
husband made her fall into the hands of death.
Seeing the story from the perspective of two heroes, one male and one female can be
observed how those characters get each one a tragic flaw from two parallel points of view.
While one of them falls into sin and disgrace because of pride and arrogance, the other dies for
wanting to please the whims of her husband. Both heroes fall simultaneously making clear the
repression of the time with regard to women and also Hawthorne's vision regarding sin, as
dictated within the context of 19th century.
Following Georgiana and her tragic flaw as heroine it is notable how she is easily
persuaded and dominated by her husband regarding the birthmark Expression of his dominance
is the ease with which he convinces Georgiana, after her momentary futile flush of resistance,
that the mark on her cheek, which she, until that time, had regarded as charming, is, indeed, a
terrible imperfection (Zanger, 1983), being that the main aspect for her fall in the story.
TRAGIC FLAW IN HAWTHORNES THE BIRTHMARK 4
Two heroes, two parallel tragic flaw turning in a tragedy a romantic story. The
Birthmark tells the story of a hero who loses his judgment to think that he as scientist can defy
nature through his wife (who initially was disagreed but eventually gives in an act of love) and
who intends to remove from the life those little imperfections that are in this story the bond that
keep the soul on earth, because perfection is in the spiritual world not in the material one. Alas!
it was too true! 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 mortal frame (Hawthorne, 1843, para. 96)












TRAGIC FLAW IN HAWTHORNES THE BIRTHMARK 5
REFERENCES

Hayashi, Y. Science and Religion in The Birth-mark and Rappaccinis Daughter. Retrieved
March 9, 2014, from http://www.kushiroct.ac.jp/library/kiyo/kiyo37/hayashiscience37.pdf
Hawthorne, N. (1843) The Birth-mark. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from
http://people.bu.edu/actaylor/The%20Birthmark.pdf
Hamartia. In Britannica.com. Retrieved March 8, 2014, from
http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/253196/hamartia

Ohio University. Aristotle & the Elements of Tragedy: English 250. Retrieved March 8, 2014,
from http://www.ohio.edu/people/hartleyg/ref/aristotletragedy.html
Smith, N. (2011, December 6). Nathaniel Hawthorne: An Overview of the Author and Thematic
Analysis of Works. Posted to http://www.articlemyriad.com
Zanger, J. (1983). Speaking of the Unspeakable: Hawthorne's "The Birthmark". Moder
Philology, 80(4), 364-371.
http://theol.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/2012/Hamartia/2013_L._Roig_Lanzillotta_Hamartia.pdf