The Birthmark: A Jungian analysis of love and Obsession
Eric Momou
UW – Milwaukee
Copyright 2023
The Birthmark stands amongst Hawthorne’s finest works of the male Jungian archetype. In it, the reader sees the installments of wayward masculinity, an analysis of the self, obsession, and infatuation. When compared alongside Edgar Allan Poe’s Morella there is much that can be seen in the psycho-social, the psycho-sexual, and the underlying depravity of the preoccupied, obsessed and troubled mind. These works serve as further implications for his readership in the conventional sense in the field of psychology as well as for the implications of interaction in a relationship setting.
For one, The Birthmark stands amongst the most intrinsically honest of Hawthorne’s works, being a masculine account of the ego. To begin, The Birthmark starts with Aylmer, “a man of science” with a forward account of a certain type of fixation that deals with “a spiritual affinity, more attractive than any chemical one” (Hawthorne 1). The object of his interest is his young wife — where they’re wayward, unrequited love is especially transcribed in the following passages as his love seems to transcend a “deeply impressive moral” (Hawthorne 1).
In contrast with The Birthmark, Poe’s Morella begins, quite evocatively with an account of a man describing his friend. Morella, as the reader soon finds out, is not his friend, but his wife. This is to be acknowledged from the perspective of the displacement noted. While Morella is in fact in place of his lover, he still describes her from the onset as a friend. Right from the beginning the reader is forced to acknowledge a sense of separation — more so akin to a sense of distance between the narrator and his beloved. Poe continues in the following passage, “Thrown by accident into her society many years ago, my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting to my spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define their unusual meaning or regulate their vague intensity” (Poe 234).
From a Jungian perspective this must be noted. The fact that the main character does not acknowledge, or chooses not to acknowledge his mate as anything more than “the fires of Eros” (being the kind of inflammatory love one sees in passion) is to be further acknowledged. There exists a disparity here between his sense of self, and his underlying emotion. The emotion of such being that he is not in the same place as his dearly beloved. What then does this mean from a Jungian perspective? What then does this mean from a moral standpoint, and by extentionsion an application The Birthmark?
From a moral standpoint the above is indicative of a loss of love. Says Jung, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” Through the transformative reaction of love, one may discover “the distinction between what one really is and what is projected into one, or what one imagines oneself to be.”(Klerk 1). Furthermore, Lance S. Owens writes in Jung in Love: The Mysterium in Liber Novus, “Yet Logos and Eros are not one, but two. In this case, however, Logos has blinded and subjugated Eros.” Thus, love can falter or seperate. A division can hold two lovers asway, and given circumstance, can extinguish like a lighted flame.
Yet, in Hawthorne’s The Birthmark, the narrator has subjugated one form of love for another. But what is Eros? What is Logos? Says C.S. Lewis, Eros is defined as one of the four Grecian forms of love: storge, philia, and agape (Lewis 7). Eros is defined by “love at first sight” (Ovid 36). Philia is described as “friendship” (Liddell 55). Agape is defined as true “love” or affection from a Christian perspective, such as God’s love for humankind (The American Dictionary of the English Language), These forms of love from a Grecian standpoint, emanate quite prolifically in Poe’s writings. Logos, then, is defined as “a unifying and liberating revelatory force which reconciles the human with the divine; manifested in the world as an act of God’s love in the form of Christ” (PBS.org).
In the above example, Eros is not a defining quality of Poe’s narrator. Rather it seems that there is a Philia attached to the namesake of Morella. There appears to be a sense of distance in this regard, and the flame of Eros –that is the impassioned form of love— is nonexistent. Instead, there proves to be a kinship or a “friendship” displayed with Poe’s narrator, and that seems to be the discordant value upon which the “situationship” of the story is placed from its dysfunctional beginning. The narrator further goes on to rectify the means of their courtship by saying, “Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the altar, and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love” (Poe 1).
How then is love described in the following pages of The Birthmark? To summarize, Aylmer is a man beset with the fixation of the resolute, just, and picturesque. The birthmark upon his wife’s cheek seems to set her apart from the idyllic ideal of his own reckonings. Says Aylmer, “Oh, do not tremble, my love!” said her husband, “I would not wrong either you or myself, by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives. But I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this little Hand.” (Hawthorne 6). In this example, Aylmer’s character is fixated on “the hand,” believing that the outward manifestation of his expression of love for his young wife would be to remove it.
In this above example, we see that there is indeed a distance placed between Aylmer, and the image he has of his wife. Says Jung in Liber Novus, “The Gods envy the perfection of man, because perfection has no need of the Gods. But since no one is perfect, we need the Gods.” In this mannerism “Gods” can be exemplified in the personhood of Aylmer, a man, beset by triviality, wishes to take on the mantle of godhood unto himself by eliminating a birthmark — a natural right of the woman he so idealizes.
Furthermore, this erroneous attribution of self-proclaimed godliness is further shown in the following passage:
“Aminadab! Aminadab!” shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor…This personage had been Aylmer’s underworker during his whole scientific career…With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical nature; while Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element” (Hawthorne 7).
It is clear from this example that Hawthorne wishes his readership to make an affiliation between the binary oppositions of the physical and the spiritual. He wishes there to be an understanding, that there exists a physical or ‘brutish’ aspect to his servant, Aminidab’s, creative aspect that personifies his material creation, and Aylmer’s spiritual one. The spiritual is something which Aylmer attempts to embody in himself through his predilections of the natural sciences.
Because there is a limit to what science can achieve, this should be noted as an obsession. Says Jung, “We have a deep, healthy, and compulsive urge to individuate, to develop our psychological potential. If that urge is blocked we resort to neurotic, unhealthy compulsive behavior” (Trosclair 1). While the act of being a scientist is not an obsession in of itself, the “neurotic, unhealthy” and compulsive behavior here is Aylmer’s fascination with the removal of the hand upon his wife’s cheek.
How then is individuation recognized in The Birthmark? Individualism is described as man’s trifle with nature — being the ongoing struggle to prove his own Logos for what he believes to be a version of his own creation. This can be exemplified in the following passage as Aylmer toils:
“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” (Hawthorne 10).
Aylmer attempts to prove himself above the category of deified knowledge. In so doing who starts to exhibit a fixation, or a monomaniacal tendency. This is made evident with the above quote, and through the self ascribement of Logos, thereby being the fatuous love that Aylmer has displaced, on the part of a godship, to his beloved wife. For one, Aylmer’s love does not serve under the previously ordained categories. He is not in Philia attraction with her, as Poe’s narrator is. He is not in Agape love with her as that would be the most intense, and most deserving of earthly penchants. No, he is under the spell of the godly attribution of love — a false Logos–that is the underlying notion that he himself is Promethean, undergoing a state of self actualization. This sense of individuation, therefore, is made manifest through Aylmer’s twisted sense of right and wrong, utilizing science as his main vehicle to produce an individual of perfection in his young wife, Georgiana. How then does this relate to the masculine account of the ego from a psychology perspective?
If one were to consider Freud’s take they would come upon the underlying note that a displacement exists here. Freud, noted for his take on the “castration” and “the fear of death” relates poignantly here (Eysenck and Wilson). Says Eysneck and Wilson in The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories (Psychology Revivals). “Freud first put forward the concept of castration anxiety in connection with his theory of the Oedipal conflict and the psychological processes employed in its resolution” (Eysenck and Wilson).
This “obsessive love disorder” can affect the genders equally. While the interpretation of the Oedipal differs markedly the masculine ego from the Freudian perspective relates directly to Carl Jung’s “Electra complex” in that there is a codependent desire for oneness or completion on the part of the father and daughter archetypes. This type of connection may be made manifest in relationships, or in the obsession or “obsessive love disorder” (Freud 70). In the case of Jung, it is believed that Aylmer might be manifesting his personal state onto Georgiana — thereby projecting onto his “love object” (Jung 191).
Furthermore, in Morella there is a haunting take on the horror genre in that that fear of replacement of the masculine self is brought upon by fear of impregnation –which the main character is not too observant to. This is a direct correlation to Jung. Impregnation, therefore can be actualized as meaning the loss of the masculine sense of self — in essence the loss of individuation as proclaimed by Jung. Says Poe in Morella, “My child,” and “my love,” were the designations usually prompted by a father’s affection, and the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella’s name died with her at her death” (Poe 238). In Morella Poe makes it clear that through the death of Morella, that the narrator has certainly exacted his purpose. In essence, the masculine Oedipal complex has overshadowed the feminine, through a complete annihilation of her.
This, for the conventional and modern reader, is a difficult paradox. For the nineteenth century readership of his time, both Poe and Hawthorne’s short stories were hallmarked by an underdevelopment of the female archetype, made mostly manifest through their plot structure, and masculine animas. The ideal, then in The Birthmark is to find oneness and semblance with the idyllic, manifest through the physical. This for Aylmer, has been a pursuit in finding his own complement through Nature:
“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” (Hawthorne 7).
For Hawthorne’s character of Aylmer, the fixation upon nature, and his control of it has become a monomania. Monomania, defined by the APA Dictionary of Psychology is “extreme enthusiasm or zeal for a single subject or idea, often manifested as a rigid, irrational idea” (APA Dictionary of Psychology). Therefore, it would seem that Aylmer’s affliction having divine providence over nature supersedes his affection for his wife. As a direct result, his wife too has a fixation on appeasing her husband. It is strange that this is not an acquiescence or placation, but a plea for her to remove it as well: “Danger? There is but one danger—that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!” cried Georgiana. “Remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad!” (Hawthorne 16). Thus it is through the trigger of the birthmark, a mark that Aylmer cannot control, that they both become fixated on the irrational. This fixation has dire consequences.
The end result for Aylmer and his wife is unfortunate. As a result of his preoccupation with “the hand” on Georgiana’s cheek, Aylmer concocts an elixir to rid her of it. This elixir, which she gladly takes, as a result of appeasing her husband’s monomania, is in fact poisonous.
Thus, through understanding the different degrees of obsession can one begin to understand the psychological dynamics that are at play in The Birthmark. Through Poe’s Morella the reader gains an understanding of the different types of love being Philia, Agape, and Logos. These modes of operation better give an understanding into the codependent and often poisonous form love which is its exact opposite: agape. Finally, these works further their analyses in their respective fields amongst literary scholars, and psychology enthusiasts alike.
Bibliography
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American Psychological Association. “mononmania.” APA Dictionary of Psychology.
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Eysenck, Hans J. and Wilson Glenn D. The Experimental Study of Freudian Theories (Psychology Revivals) 1st Edition. 1973.
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PBS.org. Logos. https://www.pbs.org/faithandreason/theogloss/logos-body.html#:~:text=A%20unifying%20and%20liberating%20revelatory,the%20form%20of%20the%20Christ.&text=In%20the%20New%20Testament%2C%20the,%22speak%22%20to%20the%20human. Accessed December 18, 2020.
Poe, Edgar Allan, Arthur Hobson Quinn, and Edward Hayes O’Neill. The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe: With Selections From His Critical Writings. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1992. Print.
S Freud, Case Histories II (PFL 9) p. 118-9 and p. 70-1.
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