Moral Lesson in Hawthorne's The Birthmark

Comparing and Contrasting “The Birthmark” and “Hills Like White Elephants”

Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” and Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” are two stories with a similar theme and dissimilar treatment of that theme. Each represents a relationship between a man and a woman—a relationship in which a man is pressuring the woman into doing something that goes against her natural instinct but that she ultimately accepts to do to please the man. In “The Birthmark,” the issue is the removal of a birthmark on the woman’s face. In “Hills Like White Elephants,” the issue is the removal of a baby growing in the woman’s womb—i.e., an abortion. In both stories, the woman is reluctant to take part in the removal, but eventually submits in spite of seeming to possess full awareness of the negative repercussions that will follow the removal. Essentially, the removal represented in both stories is a removal of life itself, as bittersweet as it may be: it is the insistence of man, bothered by the bitterness of having to shoulder a burden—an imperfection on his wife’s face in “The Birthmark,” a child in “Hills Like White Elephants”—that prompts the man to reject the life that is presented him. But whereas Hawthorne treats the theme in a moral and allegorical manner, presenting a story to the reader that should serve as a morality tale or a warning against impetuously seeking perfection in a world that cannot provide it, Hemingway treats the theme without commentary, presenting through the lens of realism a heartbreaking scene in which a man casually pressures a woman into getting an abortion so that they can be free of the responsibility of parenthood. While Hawthorne’s story is more of a cautionary tale, Hemingway’s story is more of a sad reflection that on the surface of it delivers no judgment but between the lines drips with the tragedy of a heart being repressed.

Although the themes are similar in the two stories, Hawthorne uses authorial intrusion to provide a third person perspective that frames his story in a moralistic manner. For instance, Hawthorne states in the opening paragraph: “We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion” (1). This bit of authorial commentary distinguishes Hawthorne’s story from Hemingway’s. Hawthorne has no hesitation when it comes to putting his own thoughts on the subject into words. He is conscious of having a point to make, and in the above quoted lines it is apparent that in his view the man—Aylmer—is one who believes in his own powers to transform humanity through the scientific arts.

It is much different in Hemingway’s story. Hemingway provides a description of the setting and a minimalist depiction of the main characters, but he lets their words do the talking for him. Their interaction is full of irony as they dance around the unmentionable subject that is bothering them both. Hemingway does not even give his characters names, but that in no way takes away from the reader’s ability to see them and understand them. For instance, Hemingway describes the setting in the first line of the story by depicting what lies off in the distance: “The hills across the valley of the Ebro’ were long and white” (1). The girl, looking at them, and thinking of her own pregnant condition and the fact that her partner, an American man, wants an abortion, says to him that the hills “look like white elephants” (Hemingway 1). He replies that he has never seen one before, and she says acidly, “No, you wouldn’t have” (Hemingway 1). A white elephant is an expensive gift that is viewed as troublesome or burdensome. It is a metaphor for the baby—a gift of life that the man sees as a problem that they need to get rid of. His refusal even to acknowledge seeing it that way is why she responds with contempt. She dislikes his callous attitude, but—like Georgiana in Hawthorne’s story—she is unable to resist the man’s suggestions: both women want to make the men happy even though they sense that what both men want is deadly. Hemingway never states specifically that the woman carries contempt in her tone—but the words are enough to suggest that it is there. She herself seems to be aware of it and tries to change the subject, not wishing to raise the ugliness of the matter as they are already committed to their course—but she cannot help it. It is not different from Georgiana’s attempt to get information for her husband about the specifics of the procedure to remove the birthmark: she wants to know the preciseness of the risk and seems to want him to acknowledge it to himself even though she is already committed to submitting to the procedure.

But whereas Hemingway himself is silent on the issue and its moral implications, letting the tone and irony that appears between the lines do all the talking, Hawthorne is more direct with his audience. Hawthorne is conscious of the moral implications of his allegorical tale: man’s attempt to undo the natural imperfections of a fallen human race through the scientific arts threatens to fling “away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial” (Hawthorne 20). Instead of accepting the imperfection of human nature, symbolized by the birthmark, Aylmer obsesses over it and allows it to mar his happiness with his wife. Perhaps it is a condition of the Calvinist culture that Hawthorne so often criticized in his writings—but it is not explicitly stated here. Nonetheless, the man’s desire to control nature by his own hand rather than accept that which God has given overrules his better sense; spurred on by his own pride and ambition he ends up destroying his own wife in his attempt to make her visage perfect. Hawthorne essentially tells the reader directly that unless one humbly accepts the imperfections of human nature and adopts a more salutary perspective on what God’s providence has bestowed, one is doomed to a life of misery. Hawthorne concludes his story by stating in no uncertain terms his opinion of Aylmer and the moral lesson that is to be derived: “The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present” (Hawthorne 20). In other words, Hawthorne urges the reader to be patient and humble and to live—not for this moment alone—but rather for the eternal glory that is granted those who persevere with fortitude even in the face of difficult obstacles that manifest from day to day in the present.

Hemingway is not so direct in his story. It reads almost like a screenplay, forcing the reader to supply meaning to the words between the couple: as the man tries to defuse the tension that he sees in the girl while they wait for the train that will take them to place where the abortion will be performed, she asks him, “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” (Hemingway 4). When he fails to heed her request, she says, “I’ll scream” (Hemingway 4). At the same time, the woman is able to mask her emotions with a show of positivity and friendliness, giving smiles to the waitress who brings them their drinks and even smiling at the man as he tries to keep the situation from blowing up. The final words of the story—“Do you feel better?” he asked. “I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I feel fine” (Hemingway 4)—are pregnant with meaning, but Hemingway does not dare to explain the meaning for the reader. His aim is merely to present this sad scene, all its inherent conflicts, and all the inner turmoil that bubbles to the surface of things even as the man and the woman attempt in their own ways to deal with this turmoil so as to keep it from erupting like a volcano. But the turmoil is there and is as clear to see as the hills like white elephants off in the distance.

The fact that Hemingway uses symbolism in his story—the hills like white elephants serving as a metaphorical device to frame the central conflict that goes unnamed—makes it similar in another way to Hawthorne’s story, which also uses symbolism. In Hawthorne’s story, the birthmark is a symbol of humankind’s imperfection, whether spiritual or physical or both; and Aylmer’s attempt to remove the imperfection is akin to society’s attempt to create a society that is perfect and happy. Hawthorne recognizes that human society is fundamentally flawed and will stay flawed because it consists of people with a fallen human nature; and although this idea of a fallen human nature caused by Original Sin is not explicitly stated in “The Birthmark”—at least not as explicitly as in his longer works like The Scarlet Letter or The Marble Faun—the implicit understanding is there. For instance, Hawthorne remarks that the birthmark, which looks like a crimson hand on her cheek, has a special meaning:

The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's somber imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. (Hawthorne 3)

In other words, Aylmer sees the birthmark as a representation of his wife’s fallen human nature—a tendency to sin—and he cannot abide it. He wants it gone and he is willing to put his wife in danger of death to achieve his purpose. She, seeing his unhappiness, agrees to his scheme, and dies. Thus, Hawthorne concludes that it is better to suffer the imperfections and to work with supernatural grace (again, not explicitly stated) rather than the scientific arts to bear the burden.