You should probably read up on the actual stories: The Birthmark and Dr Heidegger's Experiment, before reading the analysis below.
Quick Summary: The Birthmark
Aylmer is a scientist who is very passionate about his work. In fact, he is so obsessed with figuring out the way nature works, that it has always alienated those in his personal and social circles. Recently, however, he has taken the time out to marry a beautiful woman, Georgina.
Georgina is perfect, except for a small red birthmark on her cheek in the shape of a tiny hand. Most of her suitors have found this birthmark attractive, while women have called it out as the one blemish on an otherwise perfect face. Georgina likes the birthmark, until Aylmer brings it up - he doesn't like it, and thinks she would be perfect if it were removed.
Georgina doesn't take this well, and interprets it to mean that she is ugly, and the marriage turns unhappy. In Aylmer's mind, the birthmark is the symbol of human imperfection. Aylmer tells his wife of a dream he had, where he cut the birthmark, except it went deep, perhaps even as deep as 'life itself'. In the dream, he keeps cutting as deep as required to get it out.
Georgina is upset, and requests him to get rid of it, so he won't find her ugly. Aylmer has already been working on a solution and takes his wife to his lab. He shows her a special room where she can wait till the elixir is prepared. His assistant, Aminadab feels he wouldn't get rid of the birthmark if he had a wife like Georgina.
When the elixir is ready, the wife drinks it and falls asleep, while the birthmark fades away. Aylmer is overjoyed but Aminadab only laughs cryptically. Georgina wakes up, tells her husband that while he has made her perfect, she is now dying.When the elixir is finally ready, Aylmer brings it to his wife, who drinks it and falls asleep. Sure enough, the birthmark fades almost entirely from her face. Aminadab laughs at the outcome rather cryptically. Sadly, Georgiana wakes up, she tells Aylmer that she is dying.
The narrator ends by saying that Georgina was turned perfect, but she couldn't life, as humans are necessarily created imperfect. He also says that if Aylmer had been happy with his lot over his pursuit for perfection, he would still have his wife.
Quick Summary: Dr Heidegger's Experiment
Dr Heidegger invites four friends over for his creepy study - Col Killigrew, Mr Medbourne, Mr Gascoigne and Widow Wycherly. All four are old, and have fallen away from their specific fortunes - youth, money, power and beauty respectively, and are now in a miserable state. When they were young, all the men in the party were suitors of the Widow.
Heidegger has a bust of Hippocrates with whom he consults from time to time, a magic black book, a skeleton in his closet, and a mirror with the images of his dead patients. He presents his guests with four empty glasses and a bowl filled with a clear bubbling liquid. He puts in a withered rose into the vase, and shows it rejuvenating into a fresh bloomed flower, and claims that it is water from the mythical Fountain of Youth. His request - drink the water, and let him observe.
The guests are skeptical of growing back young, but they agree. Before they start, the doctor warns them not to make the same mistake they made the first time they were young. The guests drink from the bowl, and believe they have become young. The mirror still shows them as old people. The three men make complete fools of themselves, ending up wrestling each other for the Widow's attention, knocking over the vase and the elixir in the process
The elixir soon wears off, and they realise they are old again. Dr Heidegger doesn't rue the spilled liquid, but thanks them for teaching him the lesson to never drink the elixir. The guests however fail to learn the lesson they demonstrate, and vow to go to Florida, find this fountain of youth and drink from it day and night.
Analysis
As works of dark romanticism, there is specific focus on part of the author towards the follies and foolhardiness of humans. While Aylmer is depicted as a fool in his pursuit of perfection when he already has a wife of rare beauty, the four subjects of Dr Heidegger's experiments are shown to be fools for not learning from the mistakes they made in their life. This pessimistic view of the human psyche is fundamental to Hawthorne's body of work. People do not learn from mistakes, they are generally petty, obsessive, blind to logic and sense, and one cannot expect them to change for the better.
There is also a theme of mortality running in these stories. The subjects prove that age is a state of mind, and that when one thinks of themselves as young, they behave as such. Given that youth is associated with folly, it is clear that one doesn't find redemption for their folly in old age either. In the case of Aylmer and Georgina, there is a clear indication that the pursuit of perfection is folly. Imperfection is the basis of the human experience, and to strive for perfection is to deny one's own mortality.
Reality is subjective and based on the way we view it. There are illusions that make us see, and often experience something other than what is the norm, as experienced by the subjects. To get carried away by the new reality is also shown as a folly. Again, in case of Georgina, most of her suitors felt her birthmark was a symbol of her beauty, but Aylmer's reality was the one she accepted and hence was broken as a person by her own husband.
The story, ultimately is a commentary of human nature, but to make his point, Hawthorne uses external drivers - such as science in The Birthmark, and Supernatural elements such as the Fountain of Youth in Dr Heidegger's Experiment.
No comments:
Post a Comment