The Puritan Zeal In "The Birthmark"

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The Puritan Zeal and Spiritualized Maternalism in “The Birthmark” On the surface it seems that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark” is only cautionary story about the abuse of science. A story about a mad scientist facing the fatal consequences of his overreaching ambition, and his wife dies after taking part in an experiment where the intention is to remove her birthmark and thus make her perfect. From this point of view the moral of the story seems simple and straightforward. But it is a mistake to read the story as only concerning science and scientists. Hawthorne is actually commenting on the American psyche as a whole, indeed the Western psyche in the larger context. The specific point he makes is that the western faith, be it religious or secular, it fatally tied to materialism, which appears in the guise of an avid belief in the potential of science to deliver salvation. In order to arrive at this interpretation the broader context in which the story was written must be considered and relate this to a more nuanced reading of the story. We must first consider the Puritan heritage of America, which is an abiding theme in Hawthorne’s work as a whole. The Puritan forefathers has brought with them an intense Calvinist faith, which was instrumental in forming the character of the new nation. The central tenet of this faith was ‘sole fide’, or ‘justification by faith alone’. Calvinism was a reaction against the institutional basis of Catholicism, and therefore aimed to establish a personal communion with God, the only means to which was faith in Jesus Christ, and in the Bible as the words of God addressed directly to the believer. The Calvinist doctrine implied predestination, so that being in a state of grace marks out the believer. Only with grace are the words of God meaningful, and it is through the Bible that God establishes communion with the

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