Divine and Earthly Love
Although the focus of the reader is instinctively drawn to the issue of Georgiana's birthmark and Aylmer's obsessive need to dispose of it, the fact remains that this strange situation arises from what is originally a love relationship. The story begins with the marriage of the two central characters, and Hawthorne immediately sets up a conflict between the earthly and the divine aspects of love by describing this union as "a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one" (420). Liz Rosenberg goes so far as to say that Hawthorne, at this point, believed human love to be the "highest expression" of divinity (150).
Aylmer's problem is this: his love for science, which represents his yearning to achieve control of divinity, is in constant competition with his love for his wife. In the end, his wife becomes the victim of his love affair with science, which seems to prove itself to be just a bit stronger than his love for Georgiana, despite Hawthorne's claim that "his love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two" (421). The entire story can be read as a commentary on marriage, to some degree. All the conflict is, on the surface, caused by the birthmark; however, the birthmark existed well before the marriage and, so, cannot be the actual cause. Aylmer's restlessness and Georgiana's desperate desire to please her husband both seem to stem directly from their discovery of the difficult nature of marriage. "Marriage, beyond the romantic's plot, outside the scientist's lab is not a perfect future, though in 1843 Hawthorne, like most newlyweds, may have wished it so." (Eckstein 519)
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The nature of Georgiana's birthmark is also of special importance in this regard. It is a crimson hand, of all things, and is introduced as the object of the fascination of all her lovers. Aylmer's inability to accept its presence only upon marrying her suggests that the hand is the mark of men's hands upon Georgiana, a representation of her sexuality and, by extension, of her humanity. Aylmer wishes to worship his wife as a perfect being, wishes for his love for her to be divine love but, alas, it is not. Georgiana is human and Aylmer is unable to accept this.