Kantian Notions of Feminine Beauty and Masculine Sublimity in Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’

Abstract

Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’ is one of his short stories whose theme falls among the domain of experimenting human
nature in the fields of art, religion, and science. Regardless of the birthmark itself which represents the Original Sin, a conflict
between masculine attitude and feminine perspective toward perfection and beauty is artfully manifested in this story. The paper
study employs the notions of the beautiful and the sublime according to Immanuel Kant’s Observations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and Sublime in which he puts forward the idea that different sexes possess different perceptions of events and
environment. From his viewpoint, women are mostly capable to feel the beautiful and sympathy, while men, with their tendency
to perfection, possess and convey the feeling of the sublime. Several events, disputes and descriptions in ‘The Birthmark’,
clearly exemplify women’s zeal for beauty and men’s seeking the perfection. Hawthorne proves that oversensitivity to perfection
and sublimity can be a destructive force for the beautiful. One should not defy nature to reconcile his or her internal desires.
Within the quest to win perfection by means of limited power of science, the only winner is true love.