Both "The Birthmark" and "Ligeia" are stories dealing with obsession. Both have male characters that obsess over the perfection of their wives. However, their obsession is different. In "The Birthmark", Aylmer's obsession is on making his almost perfect wife completely perfect by getting rid of a birthmark that he finds repulsive. In "Ligeia", the narrator's obsession is over how perfect his wife who had died had been (although her beauty was unconventional).
I found that in "Ligeia" I did not question the narrator's love for the late Lady Ligeia; however, I found myself questioning if Aylmer really loved Georgiana. I was almost put off on how he talked about her, and how he says that he shudders at the sight of her birthmark. He describes her as perfect except for the small birthmark on her left cheek.
"Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy's self could have found aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives." (pg. 953)
What makes me even more put off by Aylmer, is that it is through the way he talks to Georgiana and the way he reacts every time he sees her birthmark, that she finds herself hating the birthmark as well and cannot stand to look at herself either.
Aylmer obsesses over the birthmark to the point where he has dreams about removing it and instead removing her heart. At this point of his obsession I am reminded of another story by Poe: "The Tell-Tale Heart". Although we did not read this story for class, I believe it is one that many know. In "Tell-Tale Heart" that unnamed narrator obsesses over the old man's (who lives with him) eye--which reminds him of a vultures eye. He cannot get the image of the eye out of his head and it causes him to grow mad with every day that passes. As a result he comes up with a plan to murder him to rid himself of the eye.
"I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees--very gradually--I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever." (pg. 885)
In "The Birthmark", Aylmer is a scientist, and due to his obsession/hate for his wife's birthmark he convinces her to let him try to remove the birthmark scientifically. When Aylmer finishes his experiment and gives Georgiana the liquor to drink, the reader thinks that his experiment might of worked and he has made his wife perfect; however, once the birthmark is gone, she dies.
"'My peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!'" (pg. 962)
"Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!" (pg. 962)
Both Hawthorne and Poe write great gothic short stories. All three stories mentioned have a sense of horror, obsession, and death in them; however, I feel as though Poe's stories had more of a supernatural aspect to them. It is hard for me to pick a favorite of the three stories mentioned (mostly I am between "The Birthmark" and "The Tell-Tale Heart") because they all our so well written and all have similar effects on me--which is a sense of horror.
Works Cited:
American Tradition
in Literature, Twelfth Edition. George and Barbara Perkins. McGraw- Hill, 2009.
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