Many stories from the past can still have echoing impacts today, including two such stories from the 19th century. The American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne authored “The Birth-Mark” in 1843, and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” only a year later. Both of these short stories feature a female character who is victim to a male character’s desire to control nature. Nassim Balestrini, writing for the Nathaniel Hawthorne review, states that during the 1830s and 1840s, “Medical discourse, especially on linkages among empirical science, healing, and individual character, underscores the appropriative entanglement between Hawthorne’s…stories because the narratives address medical and social notions of what it means to diagnose a problem and offer a solution.” Hawthorne effectively explores these ideas and critiques them, which shows valuable insights about Hawthorne himself and the time period. These two stories in particular feature environments that impact the characters, and offer a warning against the desire to control nature.
Nathaniel Hawthore. Photo from Heritage Images
Beatrice from “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is a character widely shaped by her environment, as she has been raised to tend to the poisonous plants that her father grows. Beatrice’s upbringing in this garden has removed her from a normal life, as her constant exposure to these plants has made her into someone who has powers beyond what normal humans can do. This has profoundly impacted her as a person, as she desires to have a normal life. Her environment, curated and carefully controlled by her father, has denied her this. Algis Valiunas, writing for New Atlantis, says “The garden is explicitly likened to Eden, though a malign fallen version thereof; [Beatrice’s] father is an eminent doctor, explicitly likened to Adam, who has cultivated plants of unexampled deadliness to be used for medicinal purposes...” Beatrice, in her isolated home with her father, is a victim to her father’s obsessive desire to control nature via his garden. The fact that the garden represents an opposite version of Eden further adds to this idea that Beatrice’s environment has heavily impacted her as a character. Dana Medoro, writing for the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, states that “Beatrice Rappaccini is forged through the medical advice to ‘breed strong citizens’ and to ‘intermingle one’s blood properly.’ She is at once symbolically pregnant with her father’s plan or conception and, as the tale opens, ripe enough for literal impregnation. Encircled by the proto-eugenic discourses on all sides of her, Beatrice is nothing but pure reproductive potential, the gestating future of a perfect human lineage and inviolable bloodline…” This highlights some of the thoughtful symbolism that was put into this work. The fact that Beatrice grew up in this kind of environment—an alternate Eden, created by her father—and yet is poisonous and even deadly illustrates Hawthorne's critique of Dr. Rappaccini’s behavior and obsessions.
Joyce Taylor as Beatrice Rappaccini in Twice Told Tales (1963)
Georgiana from “The Birth-Mark” experiences a similar arc. This story features a woman with a birthmark in the shape of a small hand, and her husband, who obsessively tries to remove it. Jeffrey Howard, writing for The Explicator, states “The marriage of Aylmer and Georgiana initially indicates their unification, but the mark disrupts the unity of the couple and replaces Georgiana because the blemish, in Aylmer’s words, ‘had taken a pretty firm hold of [his] fancy.’ It consumes him to the point that he even dreams of it instead of his wife.” Like Beatrice, Georgiana has been highly impacted by her husband’s obsession to control nature. Aylmer wants to change Georgiana by removing the one thing about her that he deems to be not perfect. Georgiana, like Beatrice, is a victim to someone who is obsessed with trying to restrain what is natural. Aylmer's obsession completely ruins him, as it consumes his thoughts and leads to him taking extreme measures that ultimately lead to Georgiana’s death. Here, Hawthorne critiques the desire to create perfection on Earth.
Illustration by Yao Xiao
In addition to familial environments, Hawthorne also pays close attention to the natural world in his work, especially in “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” According to Sabri Mnassar, “The various environmental ethics and principles that Hawthorne introduces in the story can help counter or slow down the present-day ecological crisis. By respecting the divine origin of nature and not interfering with its systems and processes, for example, humans will promote the health and welfare of the natural world. They will maintain its balance, stability, integrity and beauty.” Hawthorne believed in a union between humans and nature, and that humans are not a special species. Rather, humans are equal with the rest of the natural world and should respect natural laws, and not try to exert control over nature. Nature is a powerful force that humans should not tamper with—Beatrice Rappaccini respected nature but due to her father's power over her and his obsession with control, she perished, and Georgiana’s end is similar. There is a delicate balance between living with nature and living as a human in a rapidly advancing world, and this is true for both Hawthorne’s time and our own modern world.
A dead butterfly in Rappaccini's garden, from Twice Told Tales (1963)
Hawthorne’s lasting impact can be seen through contemporary adaptations of his work. Filmmaker and writer Miranda July authored a short story called “The Birthmark” to share a modern take on Hawthorne’s classic story. July’s adaptation loosely follows the original, but instead of a husband controlling a woman, it features a woman choosing to undergo cosmetic surgery of her own will. July’s version artfully displays how our modern environment can impact people. This retelling features themes from Hawthorne’s original—the desire to control nature and engineer perfection. Though the unnamed narrator’s birthmark is entirely natural, she feels immense pressure to have it removed in order to fit a standard of beauty. The narrator “...didn’t think she would have bothered if she hadn’t been what people call ‘very beautiful except for’” (July, 1). This exacerbates the pressure to remove the birthmark, which echoes Aylmer’s desires for Georgiana. Though the narrator does not have a husband directly controlling her, she still feels pressure from her world and the environment she inhabits—a modern world. July takes Hawthorne’s original tale and puts it into a contemporary environment, but the core ideas of the story are the same, which highlights how Hawthorne’s story is still impactful. July’s version has a more hopeful conclusion, as instead of dying, the narrator is accepted by her husband when her birthmark returns many years later. He completely accepts her and thinks about their future together. The narrator is negatively impacted by the beauty standards in her world, but is comforted by her familial environment—specifically her husband. This is what makes July’s story a unique take on Hawthorne’s.
Miranda July. Photo by Elizabeth Weinberg
July’s modern adaptation might be more immediately relatable to a contemporary audience, especially with the prevalence of social media and the perfect images it can encourage users to curate. The relevance of themes within Hawthorne’s work mirrored in a contemporary retelling reflects the continued prevalence of these ideas in our world today. July’s version of this story has incredible merit, but it is Hawthorne’s original stories that have laid powerful groundwork for creators like July to be able to adapt these compelling tales.
