524 Hawthorne, Nathaniel
After 10 days of dwindling provisions and
20-foot snow drifts making a prison of their small
cabin, escape is no longer possible. Tom and Piney
ignore the inevitable by turning to one another.
Mother Shipton, the strongest of the party, is the
first to die. She tells Oakhurst that she has starved
herself to give her week’s worth of food to Piney so
she can live a little longer.
The only chance for survival is for someone to
get back to Poker Flat. Oakhurst, though he could
have survived earlier by deserting his fellow outcasts,
tells Tom that Piney can be saved if Tom uses the
snowshoes Oakhurst has fashioned from an old
saddle. He sends him off to make the two-day walk
back to Poker Flat. As night falls, Oakhurst gathers
enough fuel to heat the cabin for several more days
before leaving himself. By the next morning, both
the Duchess and Piney realize their fate.
The storm is at its worst, and the snow has
started to invade the cabin. The fire they had built
dies way, and the two huddle together, dying in each
other’s arms. Tom does return with help, but it is too
late. Not only are the Duchess, Piney Woods, and
Mother Shipton dead, but also the men of Poker
Flat find the body of John Oakhurst buried beneath
the snow under a tree. On the tree he pinned the two
of clubs with his epitaph. He chose to end his life
rather than freeze to death or starve. His gambler
philosophy and instincts for survival finally catch up
with him.
Gary Kerley
HaWTHornE, naTHaniEL “The
birth-mark” (1846)
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-mark” tells the
story of a scientist named Aylmer and his inabil-
ity to see past a birthmark on his wife’s face. The
story charts the progress of Aylmer’s obsession
and its repercussions on his life. Aylmer is mar-
ried to a beautiful woman, yet he is unable to look
past a singular hand-shaped blemish on her cheek.
Throughout the story he focuses on the mark until
both he and his wife become miserable, she even
more so than he. A man of science, Aylmer wishes
to experiment on the mark in an effort to remove
it, to which his heartbroken wife agrees. When the
day arrives on which the experiment is to take place,
Hawthorne introduces Aylmer’s assistant, the rough-
looking Aminadab. Despite his haggard appearance,
Aminadab does not share Aylmer’s crude obsession
with the mark and suggests another plan of action,
which is quickly ignored. At this point Hawthorne
shows the difference between husband and wife,
when Georgiana finds a record of Aylmer’s past,
failed experiments and comes to love him more for
his flaws. As Aylmer is incapable of the same type
of love, the experiment finally takes place. The mark
is removed, but Georgiana dies in the process. The
story ends with Hawthorne offering up a moral les-
son to his readers: Blemishes and imperfections are
what make us human, and to try to remove them is
a sin in itself. Aylmer’s flaws make him unable to
understand, or even hear, this message.
Ronald Davislove in “The Birth-mark”
In “The Birth-mark,” Nathaniel Hawthorne offers
two contrasting views of love. The story centers
around Aylmer, a renowned scientist, and his wife,
Georgiana. Aylmer has based his life on experimen-
tation, devoting himself primarily to the study of
science. The only way Aylmer’s love for his wife can
exceed his love for science is “by intertwining itself
with his love of science, and uniting the strength
of the latter to its own.” Georgiana, on the other
hand, loves Aylmer unconditionally. Her happiness
is dependent upon his. For this reason, when he
begins to take issue with a birthmark on her cheek,
her perception of the mark quickly changes. To this
point she has looked at the mark as a charm, but
when Aylmer tells her that it “shocks” him, she is
irrevocably hurt.
Aylmer’s discontent with the mark, and there-
fore his wife, grows by leaps and bounds until he
becomes obsessive about the blemish. He begins to
dream about it and verbalizes his discontent in his
sleep, which Georgiana hears. This pains her even
more. She finally asks if he is capable of removing
the mark from her face, and Aylmer, in love not
only with science but also with his belief in his own
ability, tells Georgiana that he is capable. Georgiana
insists that he try to remove it, stating that as long
as her mark upsets her husband, she is willing to