Comparative Analysis of James Joyces Eveline and Nathaniel Hawthornes The Birthmark - Research Paper Example

Comparative analysis of James Joyce’s Eveline and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Birthmark The “Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “Eveline” by James Joyce are books based on psychoanalysis of the influence of the past on people especially women. The stories give two accounts of somehow similar backgrounds involving two women who are trapped within the nest of their past memories. These memories continue to influence them right from their childhood to their adulthood. The psychological influences on an individual are normally reflected in that person’s behavior. The psychological torture therefore interferes with a one’s operations in life. Various writers and philosophers have tried to explain the relationship between one’s behavior and his or her mind and have come to a unanimous conclusion that human behavior is a reflection of what goes on in their minds that have a connection with their past. A person’s past is therefore very important in defining his or her behavior and personality during his or her lifetime. This paper will look at how Hawthorne and Joyce motivate their female protagonists based on the relationship between the mind and one’s actions. This is done in connection with a scrutiny of Hawthorne’s book, “Birthmark” and James Joyce’s book “Eveline” among other relevant sources on psychoanalysis. The “Birthmark” tells of a story of a couple Georgian and her husband Aymer who are continuously being affected by Georgian’s physical imperfection brought about by the birthmark on her left cheek “in the centre of Georgian’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven as it were, with the texture and substance of her face” (Cervo19). This, Aymer continually refers to as a horror in Georgian and she is gravely affected by this. At one point, Aymer dreams of cutting out the mark going deep into her heart in his bid to exercise his scientific learning over the years he has been practicing as a scientist. Georgian, disgusted by the horrors brought about by her birthmark on her husband agrees to have the mark removed by Aymer given his long-standing scientific experience. “You have deep science. The entire world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness? (Hawthorne). Hawthorne’s book the “Birthmark” expresses the degree of human imperfection in nature. Every human being has some sort of imperfection in one way or the other. These imperfections are however connected to and are deeply rooted in our hearts where they have a strong tie with our past lives and our attempt to remove them alienates us from the realities of nature “Our bodies render us dependent. But they also bind us to each other—invulnerability and in collective biological humanness.” (Keetley 19) However, human beings have become tired of being imperfect and are willing to do anything to have them removed from these tormenting ordeals. Imperfections in people are always seen as faults in these people rather than a source of uniqueness. Georgian agrees to have the mark removed from her cheek in order to please her husband Aymer “If there be the remotest possibility of it, continued Georgiana, “let the attempt be made at whatever risk. The danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust, -- life is a burden which I would fling down with joy” (Hawthorne). This portrays the human discontent with their nature and their attempts to remove the imperfection in them despite these being connected to their own lives and their hearts. Hawthorne’s observations of human imperfection and the human’s attempts to remove the imperfection can be applied in today’s context where people attempt to change their imperfect nature. Because of this, various concoctions have been made that people apply on their bodies to change their body physic and believe to make them look better. This is however most common with women who would do anything to change their appearances in order to please their demanding male counterparts as seen in Georgian who agrees to undergo an operation in order to regain her lost image which frightens her husband. The book, “Birthmark” however tells us that the marks of imperfection are there to stay with us and that our attempts to remove them are sometimes very dangerous to our lives and can result into taking away our own perfect lives. Hawthorne’s work can be seen as an attempt to persuade the human race to live in harmony with their imperfections and learn to tolerate them. The marks’ connection to the heart is a symbol of the connection of our imperfection with our divine natural being from creation and that our attempts to remove them means changing completely our natural being. This according to Hawthorne cannot be overcome even by the amazing discoveries in science that are explored around the world day in day out. This is what makes humans unique “a natural philosopher who accidentally kills his wife in an experiment to perfect her beauty conforms to a notebook entry for writing a story about a perfectionist.” (Eckstein 342) Everyone has some form of uniqueness brought about by his or her natural defect and a bid to perfect them can sometimes be fatal as seen when Georgiana dies. The distinction, in these flaws is the sign mark that separates one from the others. Hawthorne however brings in an impression that other people are not sometimes patient with the flaws in others when they have the flaws within them too. This is seen when Aymer is troubled by his wife’s mark and he ignores the fact that he might as well be having some defect that his wife has been able to put up with for the whole length of time that they have been living together as husband and wife. Besides, the fact that Aymer is only able to notice the horror in his wife’s birthmark later in marriage and his attempt to remove it only after retiring from his scientific work is a scorn to the human nature. By not wanting to change with time though this is a natural fact, which a person is bound to undergo, and which he argues science cannot change or modify. Hawthorne believes that human imperfection is part of them and cannot be separated from humanity as he notes in his writing. "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 which their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wifes liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmers somber imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object..." (Hawthorne). In today’s world, some people have attempted to remove their human imperfection and ended up dying. Women are the most affected in their search for perfection before their male counterparts. Any sign of imperfection in them therefore inflicts very deep pain in their hearts and always affect their entire lives. This restlessness is a common phenomenon in women today and they have engaged themselves into risky situations in order to make themselves perfect and deemed right before their male counterparts as seen in Georgian. The psychological harboring of these memories however is the grand factor that contributes into having the feeling that one is imperfect, a feeling that is common among women than men. Hawthorne’s book has somewhat close ties with James Joyce’s book, “Eveline”. Eveline is a story of a young woman “Eveline” who is torn in thought by her past. She has been wooed and engaged by her fiancé, Frank, with whom they have planned to elope to Dublin. However, Eveline’s past continues to haunt her and makes her reluctant to fulfill the promise she had made to frank before. Eveline is raised in a family that has undergone a series of difficult moments in life. Her mother is said to have succumbed to this condition and this is actually, what is making Eveline to fear a repeat of the same on her. Her father is said to be a drunkard and often take away all Eveline’s earnings only to squander it all in drinks. After her mother’s death Eveline remains to resume the chores of a mother in their home, dusting the chairs and the curtains every week and caring for her siblings and her father in his condition using her meager salary that she earns from her small job. All these horrors and the need to search for a better life makes her utterly worried and distressed. She therefore moves out to look for comfort and love in Frank. However, on reaching the dock, Eveline cannot fathom leaving her family in trouble as she goes away to enjoy the fullness of life in a foreign land with the love of her life, Frank “She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question” (Joyce) Eveline and the Birthmark are rather different in their perspectives, when Eveline is troubled by her bad family experiences, Georgian is affected by her own flaw and both are trying to correct their pasts amidst the many challenges and risks that are involved in their escapades. The two women are constantly haunted by their pasts and these continuously hinder them from achieving the goals they desire to achieve in life. The two psychoanalytic books portray the inner struggle within every woman to perfect her nature that in most cases is not reached. The attempts mounted by both Eveline and Georgian end up frustrating their entire lives, as they do not achieve their desires. The story of Eveline tries to inform humans that clinging onto the past can sometimes hinder us from achieving the glory that we are entitled to bear. Eveline is not able to move in to Dublin with her fiancé because she is attached to her past. Despite Frank pulling her to enter the ship, which signifies other people who might want to encourage us in life to keep our eyes focused in making our future perfect, we still cling to our old pasts and would not want to leave them behind. Frank symbolizes the group of people who would want to look at life in a positive way and will encourage the others who seem to be pessimistic and disillusioned by their past “she refuses to follow Frank who beckons her to walk up the gangplank” (Dilworth 458). Aymer in birthmark on the other hand represents the fellows who would see people’s uniqueness as a fault in them and would feel disgusted on the sight of these. The world is entirely made up of the two extreme categories of people, but the fact that we all have flaws; either hidden or exposed is a reality that we cannot escape. Eveline’s rejection of frank is not just a rejection of love but also that of facing the reality of a new life altogether. The waters they have to sail through symbolize the various hurdles in life that humanity has to jump over in order to come up with a very different nature. It is true that for one to achieve a point of certainty in life, to change his or her past horrors into a better one, he or she must be able to cross the raging sea waves of life and in the end have his or her life fully changed She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror “Escape! She must escape! Frank would have her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live. Why should she be unhappy? She had a night to happiness. Frank would take her in his arms.” (Joyce 594) Fold her in his arms. He would save her. These waves mostly originate partly from within us or from within our families and over them, we have no control other than to tolerate and learn to live with. Our lives cannot be made better if we continue reflecting on our past, if these effects continue pulling us back on our way up the ladder. Besides being close to people who discourage us like in the case of Aymer only worsen the situation and at times may result in undergoing the nasty experiences and even death as in Georgian’s case. The tones in the two texts appear sad as Hawthorne and Joyce witness the struggle that most women have inflicted on themselves today in order to make themselves better, struggling with every form of flaw that they think and feel that their creator did not smoothen during creation. Ingersoll argues that the two writers seem to sympathize with the womanhood as they note the concoctions they take and the many terrible traumas they are always subjected to just to try to correct that which nature left undone. The two books come to a convergent point that despite the human’s attempt to change her imperfect nature, all is in vain as the work of creation that was done by the creator is the most perfect one and no human hand can go beyond this creative piece of art to make it perfect in any way. This is witnessed when Georgian dies in the process of undergoing a surgery to remove the horrible mark on her left cheek and despite the fact that the science seems to work out, she does not live to enjoy the fruits bore. On the other hand, Eveline manages to move away from home, which she considers as crossing the first hurdle, but cannot run away from the realities of her family by sailing across the sea “How could you betray your promise to your dead mother, for Shame Eveline, to abandon your poor father and leave your little brothers and sisters to fend for themselves. Shame on you.” (Ingersoll 200) In summary, the two books, Birthmark and Eveline are artistically molded to reflect the modern human society and to correct it, especially for women who are the most affected. These books encourage women to learn to live with the flaws of nature that form part of their lives irrespective of the traumas and humiliations that they are exposed to. It is therefore worth noting that the life of a human being is intertwined by a network of good and bad and in as much as we are able to appreciate the goodies in us, we should also learn to appreciate the bad sides of our lives and being that each of us has the good and defective sides, we should learn to tolerate each other’s imperfection. Works cited Cervo, Nathan. "Explicator." Hawthornes The Birthmark 42.4 (2010): 19. Daniel, Rodgers. "Coping with the Human Flaws." Psycho- Analysis in Fiction Literature, Short Stories 12.8 (2008): 75- 81. De Voogd, Peter. "Imaging Eveline: visualised Focalisations in James Joyces Dubliners." European journal of English Studies 4.1 (2000): 39- 48. Dilworth, Thomas. "The Numina of Joyce." Studies in Short Fiction 15.4 (2008). Eckstein, Barbra. "Studies in short fiction." Science and Romance: Hawthornes The Birthmark. 26.4 (2010): 511- 519. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birthmark.” Virginia: University of virginia Press, 1996. Ingersoll, Earl G. "Paralysis in all stages of life as seen in James Joyces Dubliners." Studies in Short Fiction (1993): 501- 510. —. "Studies in short stories." Gender Identity 30.4 (n.d.). Joyce, James. “Eveline.” New York: Prentice Hall, 2000. Joyce, James. " Spiritual Paralysis and Epiphany." Journal of Social Sciences 11.2 (2012): 587 600. Keetley, Dawn. " Bodies and Morals." Literature film Quarterly 38.1 (2010): 16- 28. Read More