Name	
Professor Martin
English 1301 S15
5 May 2008  This student read “The Birth-mark” from a book, so page numbers are included
Religious Morality VS Scientific Discovery:  Will Mankind Be the Architect of His Demise
	In our world of modernity and leisure, many people are beginning to see the destructive capacity and detrimental effects that man is creating on nature.  Mankind’s desire for technology, which only benefits man by making certain tasks easier, has not only allowed for many advancements in science and education; it has opened many new doorways for disaster!  For instance, there has been a huge movement for healthier, organic foods because scientists are discovering the negative effects of pesticides hidden in foods.  Another interest group is concentrated in the global warming dilemma that has the entire world united in the prevention of this catastrophic event.  Yet these “green” philosophies are not completely new, but recurring ideas.  Nathaniel Hawthorne is a writer who is well known for his allegorical messages that are concentrated on the argument between nature and science.  Being of a Puritan background, Hawthorne was torn between the natural way of life and the new medical discoveries being implemented in his lifetime.  Many distinguished writers of, notably but not restricted to, the Romantic genre share similar ideas: That mankind’s desire to manipulate the natural order will inevitably bring its downfall.
	In Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth-mark”, he recounts the story of a pseudo-scientist, named Alymer, who yearns to perfect his wife, Georgiana’s beauty by removing a birthmark from her cheek.  As a result of Alymer’s experimentation, Georgiana dies after he successfully removes the minor birthmark.  To better understand the depth of the story, an understanding must be made.  The mark on Georgiana’s cheek does not tarnish her beauty in any way.  In fact, Georgiana is depicted as a very attractive woman.  She is described as eye-catching to the opposite sex and “Georgiana’s lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s cheek, and left this impress there in taken of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts” (Hawthorne 1022).  Only women, whom were jealous of Georgiana’s beauty, would tell her “that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous”   (Hawthorne 1022).  Alymer, who’s love for science was elevated above all other earthly desires, gave up his laboratory for a life of marriage.  His distaste for this monotonous life and his dependency on science would drive him to become disillusioned by Georgiana’s birthmark.  Although it has never bothered him before, he suddenly grows wary of the tiny hand upon Georgiana’s face.  By convincing her that he is able to remove it, Alymer successfully returns to his scientific passion, the passion that he gave up for Georgiana.  According to scholar Cindy Weinstein, “Alymer experiences the independent life of the birthmark as a diminution of both his sexual and economic power, which can only be resuscitated by the scientific erasure of ‘the Crimson Hand’” (46).  Weinstein also states, “Georgiana’s body, and more specifically the birthmark, marks the site where the promises of the laboratory and the home converge” (Weinstein 48).  Alymer’s lust for scientific supremacy causes Georgiana to be entwined in his personal agenda.  This is indicated because Alymer has never had a successful experiment.  In fact, “the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband’s own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable…she [Georgiana] could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, compared with the ideal at which he aimed” (1028-1029).  When Georgiana is brought into the laboratory to commence the removal of the stain on her cheek, ironically, Georgiana loses consciousness.  Women are said to possess a sixth-sense.  It is this “sense” that causes Georgiana to pass out.  It is her physical body, or notably the birthmark, rejecting the false environment of the laboratory.  To assist him, Alymer calls on his assistant, Aminadab, to take Georgiana further into his domain.  Although Aminadab is rarely seen in this short story, the role he supports is very important.  He represents the tellurian man, independent of modernity and is content in the ways of nature.  Aminadab is described as being
a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace.  This personage had been Alymer’s underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master’s experiments.  With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, h is smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical nature; while Alymer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. (Hawthorne 1027)
Although Aminadab is depicted as a lowly servant and his intelligence is limited, his earthly understanding of nature is quite clear.  He is the only person in the story who accepts Georgiana as a whole.  He is also the only person to accept Georgiana’s appearance, out of three characters in the story, by stating, “If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark” (Hawthorne 1025).  As the story continues, Alymer finally perfects a solvent which is capable of ridding Georgiana and Alymer of the dreadful birthmark.  Once the birthmark is gone, Georgiana also loses “ the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame.  As the last, crimson tint of the birthmark – that sole token of human imperfection – faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight” (Hawthorne 1032).  Before the story ends, a laughter is heard throughout the laboratory.  Some scholars believe that this is Nature laughing at the flaws of a mad scientist for his inability to accept his wife’s physical exterior.  Although this is understandable in an allegorical sense, this laughter is inexplicably coming from the servant Aminadab.  Hawthorne explains, in the eighth to last paragraph, that Aminadab produces “a gross, hoarse chuckle” (1032).  After Georgiana has passed, “Then a hoarse, chuckling laughter was heard again” (Hawthorne 1032-1033).  Perhaps if the symbolic significance of Aminadab is that he is Nature, than most scholars would be correct in stating that Nature is laughing at Alymer’s failure.  In essence, if Alymer was able to accept his wife as she was, then she would still be alive.  His obsession with perfection results in the premature death of Georgiana.
	Another short story, by Hawthorne, is “Rappaccini’s Daughter”, a fable with religious undertones which also counters the scientific movement.  In this story, Hawthorne increases the complexity by utilizing more character roles than in “The Birth-Mark”.  By employing more characters, Hawthorne is able to present a tale which is deeper.  But there are other elements to this story which sets it apart from Alymer’s tale.  According to M. D. Uroff, “the frame of the tale is a medical dispute between Rappaccini and Baglioni…[and] the age old debate between two medical philosophies about the nature of disease and forms of cure, specifically the allopathic approach of Baglioni and the homeopathic approach of Rappaccini” (63).  Allopathic, by definition, is the method of treating disease by the use of agents that produce effects different from those of the diseased treated.  Homeopathy is the method of treating disease by drugs, given in minute doses, that would produce in a healthy person symptoms similar to those of the disease.  Many people believe that Rappaccini is a perverse human being because he made his daughter poisonous.  Under the homeopathic philosophy that “like cures like” (Uroff 65), Rappaccini has inadvertently caused his daughter to be lethal.  Baglioni is the archrival to Rappaccini.  He has a different philosophy towards the medical profession, specifically the allopathic viewpoint.  Although Baglioni is presented as a jovial character with a reputation as being a top doctor and a learned gentlemen “his interest in healing is subordinate to his professional jealousy” (Uroff 66).  The main character is the youthful adult who has come to Padua to obtain an education.  Once he arrives, he is entranced by Beatrice and her undeniable beauty.  As he watches her, he notices some peculiar events that occur around her.  Any living creature which comes near her or her breath is instantly killed.  To satisfy his curiosity and his lust for Beatrice, he implements tests which will prove his theory that Beatrice is, “fraught with some strange peril” (Hawthorne 3).  If in fact Rappaccini’s garden truly represents the Garden of Eden, than Giovanni is the “Adam” of this garden.  Giovanni is the youth who follows his heart and his passions.  Just like any innocent being, he is driven for the sake of happiness and curiosity.  According to Morton L. Ross, “the young protagonist ostensibly fails to come to the truth because his faith in his intuitions is too imperfect to withstand the evidence of his senses” (344).  Ironically in this metaphoric Garden of Eden, it is not Eve who brings man’s downfall, but it is actually Adam.  Persuaded by Baglioni, whom represents the snake, Giovanni is convinced that the elixir Baglioni gave him will be the cure for Beatrice’s deadly presence.  In giving her the antidote, Giovanni unknowingly sentences her to an early grave.  Some people feel that Giovanni is illogical for not following his intuition about Beatrice, but “we must recognize that Giovanni has been made to fail because he has been denied the omniscient voice which enlists and demands our own rejection of his materialistic solution” (Ross 345).  Unfortunately, “this [also] brands him a materialist, heir to the sins of Hawthorne’s other empirics like Rappaccini and Baglioni” (Ross 344).  Although many will argue that Rappaccini lacks the emotions and sees his daughter as an experiment, others would dispute this claim.  Uroff explains that, “Rappaccini has gone outside the bounds of homeopathy’s purported method of following nature’s own laws in the curative process by making his daughter unnatural.  However, he has done so not out of moral perversion but from a desire to remove Beatrice from the ‘condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none” (68).  It is Rappaccini’s desire to safeguard his daughter from the dangers of reality.  Furthermore, “it is true that Rappaccini’s poisonous flowers made Beatrice poisonous, but they did not kill her; for that, Baglioni is responsible” (Uroff 67).  
	Even though these tales are imbued with fallacies and improbabilities, the allegorical message is both powerful and speaks of moralistic truths.  This is the unspeakable evil that Hawthorne speaks of.  It can be said that Hawthorne’s fear of change and the unknown is a rational feeing, because during this time period the medical field was “treacherously unscientific” (Uroff 62).

Works Cited
Ross, Morton L.  “What Happens in ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’”  American Literature.  43.3 (November 1971): 336-345. JSTOR. Web. 30 April 2008. 
Uroff, M. D. “The Doctors in ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter.’” Nineteenth-Century Fiction. 27.1 (June 1972), 61-70. JSTOR. Web. 30 April 2008.
Weinstein, Cindy. “The Invisible Hand Made Visible: ‘The Birth-Mark.’” Nineteenth-Century Literature. 48.1 (June 1993), 44-73. JSTOR. Web. 1 May 2008.