The Birthmark Flashcards
by Nathaniel Hawthorne — tap or click to flip
Flashcard Review
Flashcards: The Birthmark
What event triggers Aylmer's obsession with removing Georgiana's birthmark?
Shortly after their marriage, Aylmer asks Georgiana if she has ever considered removing the mark on her cheek, revealing that what others found charming now strikes him as a shocking imperfection.
What does Aylmer dream about regarding the birthmark?
He dreams of surgically removing the birthmark with Aminadab, but the deeper they cut, the deeper the mark sinks, until it appears to have caught hold of Georgiana's heart.
Where does Aylmer take Georgiana to conduct the experiment?
He takes her to his extensive laboratory apartments, which he has decorated with gorgeous curtains and perfumed lamps to create a beautiful boudoir for her while he works in the adjacent furnace room.
What happens when Georgiana touches the flower Aylmer magically grows for her?
The entire plant suffers an immediate blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if burned by fire. Aylmer attributes it to "too powerful a stimulus."
What does Georgiana discover when she intrudes into the laboratory?
She finds Aylmer pale as death, anxious and absorbed over the furnace, completely unlike the cheerful and confident demeanor he had shown her in the boudoir.
What does Aylmer reveal to Georgiana about the difficulty of removing the birthmark?
He confesses that the birthmark has clutched its grasp into her being far deeper than he expected, that he has already tried powerful agents that failed, and only one remedy remains.
What are Georgiana's final words before she dies?
She tells Aylmer he has "aimed loftily" and "done nobly," urging him not to repent for rejecting the best the earth could offer, then says simply, "I am dying."
What is Aylmer's primary occupation and what distinguishes him from other men of his era?
Aylmer is a man of science and natural philosopher who has made discoveries admired by all the learned societies in Europe, but who has recently married, intertwining his love of science with his love for Georgiana.
How does Aminadab physically contrast with Aylmer?
Aminadab is short, bulky, shaggy-haired, and grimed with furnace smoke, representing man's physical nature. Aylmer is slender and pale-faced, representing the spiritual and intellectual element.
What is Aminadab's private opinion about the birthmark?
After seeing the unconscious Georgiana, he mutters to himself, "If she were my wife, I'd never part with that birthmark," showing he accepts her imperfection as natural.
How does Georgiana's attitude toward the birthmark change over the course of the story?
She initially considers it a charm, then grows to hate it as she internalizes Aylmer's horror, eventually declaring she would rather die than live with the mark that makes her the object of his disgust.
How did Georgiana's suitors view the birthmark before her marriage to Aylmer?
Many admirers called it a charm and said a fairy had touched her cheek at birth. Some desperate suitors would have risked their lives for the privilege of pressing their lips to the mysterious hand.
What does the story argue about the relationship between perfection and mortality?
The story argues they are mutually exclusive: the birthmark is the bond connecting Georgiana's spirit to her mortal body, so achieving perfection by removing it literally costs her life.
How does "The Birthmark" portray the tension between science and nature?
Hawthorne shows that nature permits humans to mar but seldom to mend. Aylmer's scientific hubris in trying to improve upon nature's design leads to destruction rather than perfection.
What does the story suggest about conditional love?
Aylmer's love is real but fatally conditional: he cannot accept Georgiana as she is. The story presents this inability to love imperfection as more destructive than the imperfection itself.
How does the story treat the idea of human overreach or hubris?
Aylmer believes his intellect can surpass nature's limits, but his journal reveals a career of brilliant attempts that always fall short of perfection. His final "success" is his greatest failure.
What literary device is at work in Aylmer's dream about cutting out the birthmark?
Foreshadowing. The dream reveals that the birthmark is rooted in Georgiana's heart, prefiguring that removing it will kill her. It also reveals Aylmer's subconscious knowledge of the danger.
How does the instantly-blooming flower that dies upon Georgiana's touch function as a literary device?
It serves as foreshadowing and a parallel to the main plot: Aylmer can produce a spectacular but fleeting result. Like the flower, Georgiana will achieve brief perfection before dying.
How do Aylmer and Aminadab function as foils in the story?
Aylmer represents the spiritual and intellectual element of humanity that demands perfection, while Aminadab represents the earthy, physical nature that accepts imperfection. Their contrasting views of the birthmark highlight the story's central conflict.
What is ironic about the outcome of Aylmer's experiment?
The experiment is a complete scientific success -- the birthmark fully disappears -- but a total personal catastrophe. Aylmer achieves exactly what he wanted and loses everything that mattered.
What does "natural philosophy" mean in the context of this story?
Natural philosophy was the 19th-century term for the study of nature and the physical world through observation and experiment -- essentially what we now call science.
What does "elixir vitae" mean as Aylmer uses the term?
It refers to a legendary substance believed by alchemists to grant immortality or indefinitely prolong life. Aylmer claims he could create one but chooses not to because it would produce "a discord in Nature."
What does "ineludible" mean in the phrase "the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould"?
Ineludible means inescapable or unavoidable. Hawthorne uses it to describe mortality's grip on all living beings, no matter how beautiful or perfect they may otherwise be.
Who says "If she were my wife, I'd never part with that birthmark" and what is its significance?
Aminadab mutters this after seeing the unconscious Georgiana. It reveals that the earthy, unsophisticated servant possesses the wisdom Aylmer lacks: the ability to accept human imperfection.
What does Georgiana mean when she says "Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life"?
She has internalized Aylmer's revulsion so completely that she would rather risk death than live with a mark that makes her the object of her husband's horror. It shows how his obsession has poisoned her self-image.
What is the meaning of the narrator's closing statement that Aylmer "failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time" to "find the perfect future in the present"?
The narrator argues that if Aylmer had possessed deeper wisdom, he would have recognized that earthly imperfection is temporary and that true perfection belongs to eternity -- he should have accepted Georgiana as she was.