There is something so hauntingly beautiful about the romantic era. I have always had a weakness for whimsically tragic stories. Whether it's works of art, music or literature. Where you are left pondering all the ideas these tales have planted deep in your thoughts.
"The Birth-Mark" - Nathaniel Hawthorne
There is a story about a husband and his wife and something, a force unknown or maybe just their own insecurities, something that is pushing them, the wife possibly into deep depression and her husband, maybe to madness. The bride, Georgiana has a mark on her cheek, something I thought was what made her beautiful, something we all hope for when it comes to our own uniqueness. The strength of the mark upon her face was beyond a sense of vanity, but something holding the two lovers apart. It is repeatedly, and then permanently described as a "crimson hand." Not the kind of hand that has granted her with a gift of true beauty. I believed she had a natural spirit, and was enchanted by the thought of a whimsical side to this tale.
"..that some fairy at her birth-hour had laid her
tiny hand upon the infant's cheek.." (Par. 7)
It was something that could have given Georgiana great power.
"Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing
his lips to the mysterious hand.." (Par. 7)
However, as time went by it seemed as though there were many in Georgiana's life that did not see this hand as a magical one in of lust and love. Could this have been? Maybe before Aylmer and her time with him. Many saw it as a "bloody hand," something that smothered her ability to be beautiful, to be perfect. Did these feelings or thoughts come on their own, or did her husband help bring them to light. Aylmer loved his wife, it seemed, but he was so in love with the desire for perfection, he could not see her and that she could have already been perfect. Was it his wife's perfection he wanted or was it his own?
This obsession of his had worn on Georgiana, it was clear, and this was breaking her down, she now saw her what once could have been a gift from the heavens, as a mark of shame and disgust. She wanted nothing to do with it. And so Georgiana was willing to do whatever it took to become perfect.
How could anyone have known, that without this mark her soul would be set free of this world.
"Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out of the sky,
and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away." (Par. 83)
When the mark left, Georgiana left with it, and so then Aylmer who is filled with joy that his creation to purify his bride had worked, is left alone. And in her last words to him she cheered for him and also pitied him for he did not appreciate the true gifts of nature.
This story was filled with amazing imagery, and a lovely use of allegory and after I read "The Birth-Mark", well actually is more about half way through, I was struck with the urge to search and read and look and upload many of my favorite works of art which happen to be from the 1800s. I am much more familiar with the arts of this time, but I am excited to look into more literature of the era.
(John William Waterhouse - Ophelia, 1889)
"Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practice an unconscious self-deception during waking moments." - The Birth-Mark, Nathaniel Hawthorne
All References: (Booth, A., Mays, K. J. Norton Intro to Literature, "The Birth-Mark. New York, NY: W.W. Nortan & Company, Inc, 2011. Print )
*id like to note that the date for The Gates of Hell is the late 1800s, NOT the late 1880s
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