Anti-Transcendentalist Literature
Nathaniel Hawthorne had a gloomy view of the world. He viewed his Puritan ancestors as evil and expressed this world view of anti-transcendentalism through his writings. Hawthorne used the voice of a storyteller and wrote folktales. One piece of literature he wrote is called, “The Birthmark”. In this short story, the narrator tells the story of a scientist who stopped his experiments to marry his wife. He views her birthmark on her cheek as a flaw. This short story shows that you need to realize the good in life and not focus on the flaws. The scientist, named Aylmer, had a desire for perfection that not only killed his wife, but blinds him from ever seeing the good in his wife. Aylmer didn’t realize the good he had in his life until she was gone.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was born July 4, 1804, and died on May 19, 1864. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, into a prominent Puritan family. He grew to feel inherently guilty of it because he was related to judge John Hathorne in the Salem Witch Trials. Nathaniel’s father, a sea captain, died in 1808 leaving his wife and three very young children. Nathaniel was the only son and he had two sisters. Nathaniel realized his love for reading and writing when he had a leg injury and couldn’t move around for a long period of time. He attended Bowdoin College from 1821 to 1825. He had very good grades and took many classes in English Composition of the Classics, mainly in Latin. Hawthorne moved back to Salem with his mother and spent his years in solitary and started writing his tales plus making sketches. He married his wife Sophia in 1842 and moved to Concord, Massachusetts. His first short stories were published anonymously in magazines and gift books. He published “Twice-Told Tales” in 1837, “Mosses from an Old Manse” in 1846 and “The Snow-Image” in 1851. In 1852, Nathaniel wrote the campaign biography for the President of the United States, Franklin Pierce. He later died on May 19, 1864, at the young age of 59 (Notable Biographies).
In his short story “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne has a character named Aylmer. Aylmer was a very smart scientist who did many experiments. He stops experimenting to marry his wife, Georgiana. One day he said, "Georgiana, has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?" (Hawthorne) The scientist views the birthmark to be an imperfection on her face and his wife becomes angry and cries. He later has a dream that he is cutting out the birthmark on her face, and then Georgiana said she wants her husband to get rid of this “deformity”. Aylmer becomes very obsessive over the birthmark and they go to his lab where he has done many experiments and made discoveries. He does experiments on her and finally makes the birthmark go away. Then Georgiana ends up dying. This short story shows how men do not always realize the good they have in their life until they don't have it anymore. Aylmer put all his time and effort just focusing on a little birthmark on her face when he considers her as perfect. Aylmer says, "My peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!" Hawthorne shows in this story that being human means you will have flaws but he couldn’t see past the small imperfection in his wife’s beauty and it ended in her demise.
This short story truly is a piece of anti-transcendentalism literature because it focuses on the faults in humanity. This story shows the destructiveness of mankind because the scientist ends up killing his wife due to one flaw she has. This story symbolizes mortality and how every living thing is imperfect in some way or another; showing the idea of how everything living will die. He views his wife as perfect, but even perfect living things have a flaw. He ends up killing his wife and is even more unhappy. “The Birthmark” truly shows the meaning of anti-transcendentalism.
Hawthorne focused his writings on the limitations and the potential destructiveness of the human spirit. His method was writing his short stories using allegories, in which the characters and details in each story had symbolic meanings. He had a very dark romanticism in his literature. He often used symbols of guilt, sin, or evil, in his literature which were the qualities he saw in humanity. Nathaniel’s motive for writing “The Minister’s Black Veil” and “The Birthmark” was to express his view of anti-transcendentalism and his gloomy vision of humanity. He wrote his stories as folktales and the stories were not true. “The Minister’s Black Veil” was published in 1836, in the The Token and Atlantic Souvenir. “The Birthmark” was published in the 1843 edition of “The Pioneer” and appeared later in “Mosses from an Old Manse” which was a collection of short stories by Hawthorne published in 1846. These short stories were most likely intended for an audience of teenagers to adults. Since there were not many forms of entertainment in those days, they most likely used these short stories for entertainment. Both stories show a display of anti-transcendentalism because both stories are about love. The characters are in love but both want something different. In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer wants to remove the birthmark from his wife's cheek. In “The Minister’s Black Veil”, Mr. Hooper’s wife wants him to remove his veil, but he won’t.
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