1. Nathaniel Hawthorne & “The Birthmark”
Symbolism and Figurative Language

2. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Nathaniel Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer.
Changed his last name so he would be disassociated with relatives that were involved in the Salem Witch Trials

3. Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England, many works featuring moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration.
His fiction works are considered part of the Romantic movement and, more specifically, dark romanticism

4. His themes often center on the inherent evil and sin of humanity, and his works often have moral messages and deep psychological complexity.

5. Literary style and themes
Hawthorne was predominantly a short story writer in his early career. His four major romances were written between 1850 and 1860: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852) and The Marble Faun (1860).

6. Hawthorne's works belong to romanticism or, more specifically, dark romanticism, cautionary tales that suggest that guilt, sin, and evil are the most inherent natural qualities of humanity.
Many of his tales and novels focus on a type of historical fiction, though Hawthorne's depiction of the past is used only as a vehicle to express themes of ancestral sin, guilt and retribution.

7. Literary Terms
Figures of speech / Figurative language - language that creates imaginative connections between our ideas and our senses or that reveals striking similarities between things we had never associated before.
Simile - an explicit comparison using like or as.
Metaphor – an implicit comparison of one thing with another unlike itself.
Extended metaphor – a detailed and extended metaphor that stretches through most of a work to underscore the work’s themes
Symbol – an object, person, place or even that signifies a meaning beyond itself.
Archetype – literary element that recur in cultural and cross-cultural myth.

8. Literary Terms, continued
Allegory – a narrative which has two distinct levels of meaning: the literal level and an abstract or figurative level; an “extended” symbol that encompasses a whole work. In an allegory, the widely recognized association of one idea with a more concrete or perceptible thing (country and flag, love and rose) is extended, possibly with a variety of other symbols, across a narrative with at least two distinct levels of meaning.
Contextual Symbol – symbols that generate meaning because of the work they are in. Also called “private symbols.”
Conventional Symbol – symbols that mean the same thing to most people because they are so much a part of the human experience. Also called “public” or “traditional” symbols.
Myth – originally meant a story of communal origin that provided an explanation or religious interpretation of man, nature, the universe, or the relation between them. When an entire story is allegorical or symbolic it is sometimes called a myth.

9. “The Birthmark”
The first line of “The Birth-Mark” specifies that the main character, Aylmer, is a “man of science” who lived in the “latter part” of the eighteenth century. Since Hawthorne wrote the story in 1843, the eighteenth-century setting makes “The Birth-Mark” a piece of historical fiction and grounds the action in a historical period known for its fascination with and faith in scientific developments and technological inventions. The eighteenth century in Europe and America is sometimes referred to as the “Age of Enlightenment” and was characterized by a belief in the power of human reason to order, apprehend, and even perfect social systems and the natural world. Aylmer’s unshakable confidence that nothing is too complicated for him to understand and master reflects this belief—though his sometimes magical thinking also links him to the earlier medieval alchemists whose works he collects in his library. Of course, eighteenth-century scientists and theorists, however objective and disinterestedly “rational” they aspired to be, inevitably were influenced by their own values, assumptions, anxieties, and politics—a problem that also plagues Aylmer in the story.   

10. The Birthmark itself Where it is located? What does it look like?
When does it appear and fade?
How do various people see it?
Aylmer
Georgiana
Georgiana’s lovers
Georgiana’s rivals

11. What does this passage mean?
“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 sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object.”

12. Discussion Questions
1. Critics have read the birthmark as a symbol of many things. What possible symbolic significance can you see in it? Why is it important that it is shaped like a hand?
2. What do you see as Aminadab’s role in the story?
3. Why do you think Georgiana complies with Aylmer’s plans, especially after she knows that he is uncertain of success?
4. In what ways do you find the characters and events in this story realistic or unrealistic? If you don’t find them particularly realistic, what effect does that view have on how you read the story? Does it matter in what way the characters and events are unrealistic?

13. Discussion Questions, continued
5. Why does Aylmer create a “secluded abode” within his laboratory for Georgiana? What is the significance of his decision to move her into his workplace? 6. What clues does the story provide about Georgiana’s assessment of her husband’s scientific expertise? What does she mean when she tells him she “worships” him? Are there moments when she seems critical of him? When does she challenge him and when is she submissive? 7. Why do you think Aminadab laughs his “hoarse, chuckling laugh” as Geogiana dies? 8. Examine the final three lines of the story. Is the neatly stated moral adequate to all of the issues raised by the story? Why does Hawthorne capitalize the words “Time,” “Eternity,” and “Future”?