Spirit and Matter
"The Birthmark" goes into quite some depth about man's condition as one of being trapped between the divine and the earthly. Indeed, every description of Aylmer suggests that he, with his slender, airy appearance and unearthly manner of speech, is a representation of the divine spirit, while every description of Aminadab places him as very earthly, bulky, and crudely solid, a representation of matter. Georgiana, embodying aspects of both, then becomes the human being caught between the two states and tragically destroyed by this condition.
Liz Rosenberg describes Hawthorne's exploration of this theme as a statement on Animism, which she calls "a system of thought that simultaneously conflates and divorces spirit and matter" (146). The ultimate failure of all the characters in the story results from their failure to resolve their struggle to find a balance between their spiritual nature and their earthly flesh. Georgiana, perhaps the most balanced of all of the |
characters, falls into destruction simply because Aylmer can not reconcile the coexistence of her humanity and her divinity. Indeed, Aylmer's entire purpose as a man and a scientist is to overcome his humanity to achieve complete union with the divine, at which he always inevitably fails, as seen when his wife discovers his journal recording his every attempt at this accomplishment:
"It was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man,
the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature
at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part." (Hawthorne 427)
the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature
at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part." (Hawthorne 427)