The Birthmark

by

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Themes and Colors
Science, Nature, and Religion Theme Icon
Perfection Theme Icon
Fatal Pride Theme Icon
Submission and Sacrifice Theme Icon
Mortality Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Birthmark, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fatal Pride Theme Icon

Aylmer exhibits the trait known as hubris, a pride that results in his own downfall. The idea of hubris originates with Greek stage tragedies such as Oedipus Rex, but many characters since ancient times have similarly suffered from their own sense of superiority. Aylmer, for one, has complete confidence in his own scientific methods, despite the failures he has experienced in the past. Even though he has never made an elixir of life, for example, he tells Georgiana that he definitely could if he wanted to.

Furthermore, Aylmer has married one of the most beautiful and good women in the world, whom many other men would have liked to marry. But he isn’t content to have the best woman; instead he must have a perfect woman. In his pride, Aylmer thinks he can correct what he sees as the mistakes of nature, and thus, Hawthorne implies, of God. Such an idea requires that Aylmer assume himself superior to these entities. He essentially tries to play God by means of his scientific skills. Characters invariably come to bad ends when they step on God’s toes, and Aylmer is no exception.

Aylmer’s hubris seems particularly extreme in contrast to the humble natures of the other two characters. Although Georgiana is admired by all men who see her, she never shows any vanity. Instead, she comes to hate her own appearance because of Aylmer’s influence. Similarly, Aminadab accepts Aylmer’s view of him as a dumb machine, and never tries to convince Aylmer that he understands the birthmark better than Aylmer does, even though his perspective on it turns out to be the correct one.

Aylmer is blind to his own mortal shortcomings, and so he believes that he can make right what nature has made, in his eyes, wrong. Instead his hubris ends, as hubris always does, with tragedy.

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Fatal Pride Quotes in The Birthmark

Below you will find the important quotes in The Birthmark related to the theme of Fatal Pride.
The Birthmark Quotes

I have already given this matter the deepest thought—thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be.

Related Characters: Aylmer (speaker), Georgiana
Related Symbols: The Birthmark
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 181
Explanation and Analysis:

Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make.

Related Characters: Aylmer (speaker)
Page Number: 182
Explanation and Analysis:

Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower.
"It is magical!" cried Georgiana. "I dare not touch it."
"Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer,—"pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself."
But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire.

Related Characters: Aylmer (speaker), Georgiana (speaker)
Related Symbols: Plants
Page Number: 184
Explanation and Analysis:

He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this long-sought medium; "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it." Not less singular were his opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse.

Related Characters: Aylmer (speaker), Georgiana
Page Number: 185
Explanation and Analysis:

"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye that I could imagine it the elixir of life."
"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or, rather, the elixir of immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it.”

Related Characters: Aylmer (speaker), Georgiana (speaker)
Page Number: 185-86
Explanation and Analysis:

Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. 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.

Related Characters: Aylmer, Georgiana
Page Number: 187
Explanation and Analysis:

After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love—so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before.

Related Characters: Aylmer, Georgiana
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was 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. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness of a higher state.

Related Characters: Aylmer, Georgiana, Aminadab
Related Symbols: The Birthmark
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis: