American Literature

    In comparing Poes 1843 short story The Tell-Tale Heart with Hawthornes 1843 short story The Birthmark, it is clear that both of the themes center on the idea of physical imperfection being a mark of moral shortcoming.  In Poes story, it is an older man who suffers the scorn and eventually murder, or attempted murder, committed by a younger man.  In Hawthornes story, it is a young wife Georgiana who endures the extreme disapproval and also murder committed by her own husband Aylmer.  The older man and Georgiana share a common flaw, a physical imperfection, the older man having a glazed eye and Georgiana having a birthmark, and it is this imperfection and the reaction of hatred and disgust by the counterpart which serves to initiate horrible strife and death.  Both the younger man and Aylmer become increasingly annoyed by the slight physical imperfections of their counterparts, and eventually their obsession with the presence of this small evil brings about the complete downfall of all of the characters.  Between the frenzied narration of The Tell-Tale Heart and the flawed experimentation of The Birthmark, the obsession for perfection in a world of imperfection is illuminated by the question of morality in changing something outside of our human inquisition.

The Tell-Tale Heart
    In Poes story, one of the two main characters, a younger man who perhaps is a boarder in the home of the older man or maybe even his son, is struck by what he considers to be a hideous physical defect, the pale blue and filmy eye of the older man.  The ugliness of the older mans eye becomes a wild obsession of the younger man, and eventually, he cannot bear to be in its presence.  In what could be termed as a manic or psychotic state, the younger man decides to take the life of the older man, to exterminate both him and his imperfection.  Over the course of a week, the younger man becomes increasingly insane and his murderous tendencies mount, as he plots the death of his host.  The younger man cannot stand to be in the presence of the older mans eye, which he describes as being like that of a vulture whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold.  By ridding himself completely of the older man, he would be ridding himself of having to remain in the presence of the evil he sees in the older man, exterminating the cold emptiness of the eye.  However, even after the murder, the younger man is tormented by the horrible beating of the hideous heart of the older man, as is pulses beneath the floorboards.

The Birthmark
In Hawthornes story, the wife Georgiana is the target of her husband Aylmers distaste, as he becomes increasingly repulsed by his wifes birthmark.  In a concerted effort to remove her blemish, Aylmer decides that a medical procedure is the only option, and he convinces Georgiana to succumb to a risky experiment, taking a tonic to purge her of bodily imperfection.  Aylmer is obviously completely disgusted by the birthmark on his wifes hand, and his cannot remain in her presence without being revolted by her.  The obsession with his wifes mark of evil is so great that Aylmer would rather risk the sacrifice the life of his wife than to be forced to gaze upon her marred skin.  Georgiana agrees to undergo the medical procedure in an effort to please her husband, yet the tonic proves to be too strong for her and she is poisoned to death.  At the end of the story, Georgiana shares some words of wisdom from her deathbed when she tells her husband that he has aimed loftily yet rejected the best the earth could offer.  Although the small scourge of sin was present upon her, Aylmer rejects the complete personhood of his wife in his effort to purge her.

Victim Comparison
    In comparing the characters of the older man and Georgiana, it is evident that both of them are innocent of personal wrongdoing.  Physical deformations are present, albeit miniscule in comparison to their total selves.  It is rather likely that the older man and Georgiana had no personal influence upon their own physical imperfections.  In the case of the older man, perhaps it was simply age or disease which influenced the glaze of his eye, as he could have been suffering from cataracts.  In the case of Georgiana, it is probable that there was a slight disruption of her fetal development in the womb, due to actions of her mother, which caused her to be born with the mark upon her skin.  It is certainly possible that neither the older man nor Georgiana are responsible for their physical flaws, yet they are placed in the position of being guilty due to the odd behavior of their counterparts.  By taking a positive view of the victims, it is safe to say that the older man and Georgina are wrongly tormented and assaulted by their aggressors, and they suffer to death due to the maniacal perspectives of the murderers.

Aggressor Comparison
    In comparing the characters of younger man and Aylmer, it is obvious that they are touched by a kind of deranged obsessive compulsive impulse in wanting to erase imperfection from their environments.  In the effort to purge their surroundings, they ended up killing their loved ones.  This extreme effort to secure perfection and rid themselves of sin left no room for earthliness, for human error and weakness.  They would both rather lead lives of complete perfection than lives where amounts of imperfection are tolerable.  The younger man sees the sin in the eye of the older man and exudes a severe reaction of enraged sinfulness, where he himself takes on his own gruesome mortal sin and his own extreme imperfection in the act of murder.  Similarly, Aylmer sees the sin in the birthmark of Georgiana and reacts with repulsed sinfulness, where he himself also takes on his own horrible mortal sin and his own severe imperfection in the act of murder.  In the attempts of both men to purge themselves of sin, they invite even greater sin into their lives.

    Both of these short stories deal with the theme of the interplay between imperfection and perfection, between sin and goodness.  In the end, it is obvious that both dramas are tragic in the sense that the characters most in search of perfection become the most severely flawed characters, while the characters with minor flaws become tragic heroes, sacrificed by the moral shortcomings of their counterparts.  The older man and Georgiana become the symbols for righteousness and tolerance, while the younger man and Aylmer become the symbols for sinfulness and intolerance.  Georgianas final remarks remain very poignant, in that while it is good to set ones sights on moral perfection, it can often be dangerous to try to force away the physical and moral sins of the world in order to the gain complete perfection of heaven.  Keeping strong on the path of goodness and righteousness and remaining morally upright is different from placing energy in attempting to eradicate evil.  Very often, one only attains the good by remaining focused on the good.