Category Archives: JM13D

There is a famous proverb in China that states, “Gold cannot be pure, and people cannot be perfect.”  This proverb symbolizes human imperfection, which just so happens to be the moral of “The Birth-mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  This symbolism pervades almost the entirety of the text which is why we should try to interpret this text through its symbolism.

In the story, Georgiana’s blemish was the sole object of imperfection for Aylmer.  Aylmer the mighty scientist thought he could get rid of it.  On page 268 he said that the “Alchemists… spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent, by which the Golden Principle might be elicted from all things vile and base.”  Well if the Alchemists failed, surely that failure was a symbol of the general failures that occur in the field of science.  As the proverb says, gold cannot be pure, and clearly according to that idea, science cannot solve all problems.

Another symbol in the story which related to the Chinese proverb is the flower Aylmer brought out to show to Georgiana.  He said “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.”  The flower withered way too quickly and it lived a short life, as did Georgiana, as a result of Aylmer’s experimentations.

Another important symbol in the story is Aylmer’s folio, which Georgiana finds in his book collection.  “It was the sad confession, and continual exemplification, of the short-comings of the composite man…” (271). This folio is a representation and documentation of Aylmer’s failures throughout the years, and served as a symbol for the failure he would make by not accepting his wife for the person she was, rather than for how she looked. Aylmer realized that he was not perfect, but why couldn’t he realize that about his wife?

Beauty, just like flowers, withers away as time passes by.  No beautiful thing lasts forever, and as such, we go back to the central idea that people are not perfect.  Pursuing perfection in a human being is like pursuing pure gold or a flower that lives for eternity: it’s just impossible.

What makes you happy will not necessarily make me happy.

Happiness is a desired that is shared amongst all people, but the definition of it always varies from person to person. In the past week or two, we have read many short stories that related to and depicted happiness. Through these readings, we can see that happiness really does always differ between people and circumstances.

When I was reading the story, “The Birth-Mark,” I continuously found it crazy that someone like this man would exist in the world. In order to make his wife “perfect,” he was willing to risk hurting her. Perfection? There’s no such thing. Nothing is perfect, which is exactly what this story tells us. To make his wife perfect, he wanted to get rid of her birthmark, but as a result of his wife dies. He was able to perfect her by getting rid of her birthmark, but she did no become perfect because she eventually dies as a result of the removal of the birthmark. Perfection is unattainable. Perfection does not always equal happiness. Perfection does not exist. Trying to make everything in life “perfect” is a waste of time, because no matter how hard you try nothing will every be perfect. Focusing on the imperfections in life will lead to an unhappy life.

After reading the first half of the story “Cathedral,” I was confused. There didn’t seem to be a point or focus in the first few pages. The title of the story didn’t seem to tie together with the actually story. Only after finishing the whole reading did I realize that the very end of the story is where happiness is thrown into the picture. I could finally connect different parts of the story with the topic of happiness. When I started reading and was introduced to the “blind man” in the story, I automatically thought it would somehow be related to perfection. Blind people are unable to physically see the imperfections in the world and imperfections of people. Are they happier because they cannot see flaws or are the more unhappy because they are unable to see the beautiful things in life?  At the very end of the story, when they closed their eyes and freely drew the cathedral, I thought of happiness. I think that the freedom to draw it in whatever way they wanted and not being able to point out the imperfections with their eyes closed, made their drawing of the cathedral perfect. Sometimes life isn’t about pointing out the flaws and imperfections, but more about learning to ignore the flaws and focus on the beauty of everything around us. In this story, the husband went from being very judgmental and focusing on imperfections of people to becoming able to accept and embrace the imperfections in life. By accepting the flaws in life, people may become happier.

It has always been common sense to me that happiness varies between people, but the extent to which is differs has never really crossed my mind. I didn’t really care as long as everyone was happy in their own way. Or at least that’s what I thought. My perspective on that changed a bit when I came across selected short stories. The character in these stories and they way they represent happiness is very different from each other, and even more so, where different from me. Birthmark, by Nathanial Hawthorne, tells a bittersweet tale of Aylmer and his displease with his, so called “flawed” wife, Georgiana, because of a birthmark on her cheek. Here, the happiness of Aylmer is contingent on the removal of the birthmark and his obsession with perfection. Although it is never explicitly shown, the happiness of Georgiana, however, seems to depend on the happiness of her husband and the relationship as a whole. She seems to be tired of Aylmer’s disgust with her and their distancing relationship. I see this as so because she never had a problem with her own birthmark at first; in fact, she viewed it as a charm. But as Aylmer points it out and hounds her about it day and night, she begins to fall into a rather anxious state, wanting to remove the birthmark to save the relationship. In the end, she even went as far as to risk her life just to be in a happier relationship again. Birthmark is reminiscent to Ernest Hemingway’s, Hills Like White Elephants in the sense that Jig, the female character of the story, doesn’t seem to have her own sense of happiness that isn’t contingent on her partner’s and the relationship. In this story, Jig seems to want the baby and not want such a reckless life anymore; this may be her deep down happiness but it is never actually shown or portrayed by the character. Instead, it seems that her happiness depends on how much the American will love her. This kind of “happiness” is enough to drive her to not care about herself and abort the baby. In the end, she even smiles and tells the American, “I’m fine.” Obviously, this to me doesn’t make sense because her want to be happy is not to be happy for herself but to be happy for her man and the relationship as a whole.

What I found personally disturbing about these two stories is that they both seem to depict happiness as something that is actually unhappy for themselves because they’re forcing their own happiness for someone else’s (confusing AND ironic, I know). This isn’t necessarily a uniform view of happiness (and by no means am I saying that everyone should be selfish and only care about their own happiness), but it is showing a pattern of how WOMEN perceive happiness, in terms of trying to please the men too hard. The Story of An Hour by Kate Chopin on the other hand seems to be the opposite. Mrs. Louise Mallard seems is portrayed to be a frail woman, so you obviously assume she wouldn’t make decisions for herself opposed to the healthier and more youthful Jig and Georgiana. However, Mrs. Mallard’s happiness did not seem to depend on her partner, but rather the freedom from that partner. When she was imagining being free from her husband and the marriage, she had all these visions and sensations and good feelings. Unlike the other two female characters, Mrs. Mallard was the one character that wanted to be happy for herself and not the others. Her type of happiness is what I abide by more and I see her as a stronger character as opposed to Jig and Georgiana as well.

We’re almost half way through with the semester in our “happiness” themed English class, but there is still so much more to learn. We have developed vague ideas of happiness. We developed ways of achieving happiness and basically answer the question, what is happiness, yet there are always new readings in which our ideas are challenged when we feel we have grasped it. Obviously, I have now come to a conclusion that happiness just happens because everyone is different; our frames of reference are so unique that happiness cannot be defined, like the idea of perfection in The Birthmark, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Happiness in The Birthmark developed around the idea of perfection. Aylmer simply couldn’t resist talking about the birthmark that was on his beloved wife’s face, calling it a “defect”. I don’t believe that a birthmark makes a woman any less desirable than one without a birthmark. Aylmer might have achieved his happiness for a brief moment, when the birthmark was finally off of his wife, but she died in the process. Was it worth it? He lost his beloved wife in the process for a brief, less than a second, moment of happiness seeing his wife only look perfect. From Aylmer’s frame of reference perfection seemed to his idea of happiness but from his assistant’s frame of reference, it is implied that he looks beyond the birthmark and would keep Georgiana the way she is if she were his wife. His way of happiness did not involve accepting the fact that he, Aylmer himself, had to develop personally and not force it upon others.

In the Cathedral by Raymond Carver, I concluded that that happiness comes from relaxing. The narrator at the end seems to have found an indescribable feeling that he has come upon through closing his eyes and following the flow of drawing a cathedral. He felt free and weightless, exposed in a sense. Despite the fact that the effect might have came from the “dope” that they were smoking, the feeling of happiness could be interpreted as a breakthrough in a new way of seeing life or just three people smoking a dope for temporary happiness. The way it was written makes and calls upon so many different interpretations. For example, the blind man once claims that he’s up for new experiences and maybe that is why is seems so free and knowledge. He listens a lot because he cannot see. He is immune from the idea of perfection on a human being and accepts people for who they are through personalities.

Come to think of it, these short stories are so unalike yet not. They both tackle on the idea of happiness but the one strictly bases happiness off of visuals and the other does not. In The Birthmark the “Crimson Hand” is the defect, the flaw in Aylmer’s perfect wife and it must be removed for the two to be a happy couple. In the Cathedral, the narrator begins on judging the blind man, the way he interacts with the narrator’s wife, the way he looks without his sunglasses, and the way he eats but in the end, when the eyes are closed, he feels the happiness. I honestly don’t know what to think anymore on the simple idea of happiness.