The “scientist,” a new word for the “natural philosopher” which came into the New England language around 1833, is criticized in Hawthorne’s writings for the power over nature and the knowledge which he possessed. Hawthorne expresses his Puritan-bred beliefs for scientists as men who were gaining too much earthly power and attempting to take the place of God. In the short story “The Birth Mark,” in which the young scientist Aylmer attempts to remove an imperfection from his wife’s cheek, Hawthorne examines the problems when unworthy men come closer to finding the mysteries of Earth and creation. While watching him in his laboratory, Georgiana, Aylmer’s wife, notes, “…the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world.” The sacrilegious command which Aylmer yields over the creations of God is enough to make his wife belief that he may, in fact, be more powerful than the God she was taught to fear. This unnatural power and composure in defying God would have horrified the Puritans, as it does Georgiana, in that an undeserving man was rivaling the omnipotence of a divine being. Georgiana, as the Puritanical voice in this story, questions Aylmer on the wickedness of holding such supremacy:
“It is terrible to possess such power, or even dream of possessing it,” [Georgiana warned.]
“…No king,” [replied Aylmer,] “on his guarded throne, could keep his life, if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it.”
The “king” which Aylmer refers to dethroning has a marked similarity to the “King of the Jews,” who is being contradicted and defied through Aylmer’s science which alters the work and creations of God. Here, Hawthorne also mentions the possibility of the almighty God being defied by a mere man through science- the capability of Aylmer to challenge the divinity of his heavenly father was great enough to dispute whether or not God ever existed in the first place, a question which the Puritans blamed the men of science for creating. In fear that a belief in science could undo the belief in God, Puritans regarded scientists with fear and scorn for the power they held over both nature and the minds of Christians.
Not only scientists, as Hawthorne explained, could hold power over man and God, but any individual with marked knowledge beyond that of his fellows was a danger to the Puritan belief system. Scholars, doctors, or even artists, who were capable of creating things which rivaled the creations of God, were seen as threats in Puritanical society. In Hawthorne’s brief work, “The Prophetic Pictures,” a painter who mystifies the town holds the ability to mold the actions of his subjects based on his work, ultimately fostering the unhappiness in the marriage of a couple who sat for him- a power too great and similar to that of God for any human to rightfully possess. The artist’s unnatural talent was seen with skepticism and suspicion- like the scientist, his work was infringing too closely on the supremacy of God:
Some deemed it an offense against the Mosaic Law, and even a presumptuous mockery of the Creator, to bring into existence such lively images of his creatures.
The fact that the subjects are “his creatures,” whom he can control and operate, challenges and even mocks the work which God does in creating Man. In assuming the role of God over his models, the artist is seen with scorn by the people of the town, who resent his ability to bring his paintings to life just as well as God gives breath to his image of man. The painter is also too sure in his power and gift to fear the wrath of his humbling god:
“O glorious Art!” thus mused the painter as he trod the street, “thou art the image of the Creator’s own. …The dead live again. Thou recallest them to their old scenes, and givest their gray shadows the lustre of a better life, at once earthly and immortal. …O potent Art! As thou bringest the faintly revealed Past to stand in that narrow strip of sunlight, which we call Now, canst thou summon the shrouded Future to meet her there? Have I not achieved it? Am I not thy Prophet?”
Like the men which God creates, the people who the artist paints are in the image of his own. The artist now refers to himself as “the Creator,” a term used for God earlier in the piece, giving his creations the power to “live again” and the possibility of a life “at once earthly and immortal”- privileges which one would attribute only to a heavenly creator. The word “art” is capitalized in the passage, as if ascribing to some sort of reverenced and unknown magic which should be spoken of with respect. Besides being “the Creator”, the artist also calls himself “the Prophet,” now assuming not only the role of the Divine Father, but the Son as well- the artist believes he is the God and Jesus of his world. This assumption would be utter blasphemy in the Puritan mind, giving the society only more to frown upon when looking at any sort of scholarly or inimitable personage. The individual’s belief that he held the same power as and was, in his own world, “God,” would prove to be the opposite in the Puritanical point of view.
While the scientist and artist would see themselves with godly characteristics, the Puritans regarded them as artful and wicked Satan-figures in their society. With his unnatural concoctions and wizardly aspects, the motives of the scientist were thought to be unarguably evil. Not only was he calling himself equal to God, but he was his exact and opposite rival- a learned man was the embodiment of the Devil himself. The doctor in Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter, Roger Chillingworth, makes it his mission to drive the guilt-ridden Reverend Dimmesdale insane and thwart his ex-wife’s plans with Dimmesdale at any cost. Chillingworth illustrates the Puritan ideal of what a doctor, in reality, was:
Had a man seen old Roger Chillingworth at that moment of his ecstasy [upon discovering the hidden sin of the Reverend Dimmesdale], he would have had no need to ask how Satan comports himself when as precious human sold is lost to heaven, and won to his kingdom.
Hawthorne does not subtly hint at who Chillingworth represents in the novel, but rather blatantly labels him as a devil who rejoices at finally discovering Dimmesdale’s sin. Chillingworth’s interest in Dimmesdale, a man of God rather than science, shows the parallel but opposite bonds which exist between God and Satan in the Puritan religion. Dimmesdale’s reluctance to trust Chillingworth is the reluctance of man to trust the Devil- when Chillingworth asks the Reverend to confide in him of his sin, Dimmesdale’s reply is quick:
No!- not to thee!- not to an earthly physician! …But, if it be the soul’s disease, then do I commit myself to the one Physician of the soul. He, if it stands with his good pleasure, can cure; or he can kill! …But who art thou, that meddlest in this matter?- that dares thrust himself between a sufferer and his God?
Chillingworth’s attempt to put himself between the sinner and his God is, in Hawthorne’s story and the Puritanical viewpoint, the work of the Devil. Hawthorne repudiates the sometimes lofty and reverenced station of the doctor, noting that God is the one and only “Physician of the soul.” Chillingworth’s occupation as a man trying to undue the work of God through medicines and potions gives him an evil façade in Puritan society and Hawthorne’s eyes. The wicked physician, in ultimately driving Dimmesdale to his death, exemplified the Puritan prejudice that men of science cared more for knowledge than life.
The learned man’s thirst for knowledge would result, in Hawthorne’s stories, in a disconnected individual whose love of science concluded in a disregard for man and all forms of life. In the scientist’s quest for “truth,” no human life need be spared or pitied. Dr. Rappaccini, in Hawthorne’s short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” nourished his child on poison and watched her life pass by as a sort of perverse experiment as she falls in love with the young Giovanni and turns him poisonous also. To Rappaccini, the pursuit of science was more important than Man:
But as for Rappaccini, …he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard-seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge.
The knowledge which Rappaccini would find proved, to him, to be far more valuable than any earthly bond or life, as he stood ready to sacrifice even himself in the name of science. Even a love of his daughter could not halt his scientific endeavors:
[Beatrice’s] father… was not restrained by natural affection from offering up his child, in this horrible manner, as the victim of his insane zeal for science. For- let us do him justice- he is as true a man of science as ever distilled his own heart in an alembic.
As a “true man of science,” rather than a man of God, Rappaccini is willing to do whatever necessary to attain the knowledge he seeks without guilt or repentance for what he has to do to achieve his new learning, even if it means endangering his daughter and distorting a creation of God. Hawthorne also includes another man of higher learning in this story, a professor named Baglioni, whose only regrets are letting Rappaccini turn Giovanni into part of his experiment before he could, as he states,
The youth is the son of a friend of mine and shall not come to any harm from which the arcane of medical science can preserve him. Besides, it is too insufferable an impertinence of Rappaccini thus to snatch the lad out of my own hands, as I may say, and make use of him for his infernal experiment.
Baglioni is happy to help Giovanni only if he can proudly employ his own scientific knowledge to undue what his fellow alchemist, Rappaccini, has done. The professor is only piqued at the “impertinence” of Rappaccini for turning Giovanni into an experiment before he could. By creating the personalities of Baglioni and Rappaccini so differently yet making their inmost motives of gaining knowledge the same, Hawthorne illustrates the Puritan belief that all scientists had the same motivations and wickedness in them. In their corrupt souls, the only thing that mattered to the scientist was his work and the controlling of his environment- a trait which, ironically, is similar to that of the pious Puritan.
In Hawthorne’s three short stories and The Scarlet Letter, his view on scientists were made clear- they were heartless and powerful blasphemers who manipulated Man and nature for their own benefit, but at the same time, appeared strangely familiar to their Puritan counterparts. In his obvious censure of the learned man, Hawthorne leaves a subtle hint of similarity and irony to his Puritan heritage- like the scientists and scholars in his stories, the Puritan leaders would work to manipulate Man’s mind to the form which pleased them, often setting unnatural boundaries and moral rules which stifled the inherent desires of the society and resulted in an unearthly creation of humanity. Like Roger Chillingworth’s stifled control of the Reverend Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, the guilt and sins which Puritanism caused a person to carry would drive them to insanity, hurting the individual more than it was protecting him. As the artist in “The Prophetic Pictures” manipulates the subjects of his paintings to suit his fancy, the society in which the Puritan thrives is built on the foundation of guidelines and restrictions to shape each person to the desired form of piousness and morality which the religion calls for. The scientists in “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and “The Birth Mark” ruin mankind when they try to influence it, killing the beautiful and virtuous Beatrice and Georgiana. Ironically, Puritans detested the manipulative scientist and labeled him as “wicked” while they themselves were controlling each other’s behavior and thoughts as he did. In his outspoken writing to the Puritans against scientists, Hawthorne also hid deeper in his words a message to the scientists about the Puritans- hypocritically damning the men of knowledge for their sacrilegious behavior, the Puritans were employing the same skills to delude the minds of their worshippers. Hawthorne’s true feelings on the religion of his childhood shine through as he expresses the aberrant control and severity of a community which suppressed all natural and God-given feelings which Man possessed. Hawthorne’s regard of Puritanism is conveyed through his “censure” of the scientist, which he accomplishes in his symbolic references and linguistic techniques in his texts.
To deliver the portrait of the Puritan and scientist necessary to prove that they were more equal than was expected, Hawthorne employed the use of symbols and imagery to illustrate his beliefs linguistically. The importance of color in Hawthorne’s stories is evident in “The Prophetic Pictures” and The Scarlet Letter- science is a “Black Art,” representing all that is evil and base, and the scientists are characterized by the color red, the literal embodiment of Hell, as in The Scarlet Letter:
According to vulgar idea, the fire in [Chillingworth’s] lab was fed with eternal fuel; and so, as might be expected, his visage was getting sooty with smoke.
Because Chillingworth dwelt too long near the fires of Hell, his nature was becoming blackened with the “soot” which the fire threw out at him. The imagery Hawthorne uses also lends to the reader’s understanding of his beliefs- the character of Doctor Rappaccini is learned through Hawthorne’s detailed account of him:
His figure…showed itself to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly looking man, dressed in a scholar’s garb of black. He was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin gray beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and cultivation, but which could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart.
Once again alluding to the color black as representing sin and evil, Hawthorne’s description of Rappaccini allows the reader to contrive his cold aspect and personality without needing to have Hawthorne directly state it. Likewise, his account of Beatrice’s voice which is “as rich as a tropical sunset, and which made Giovanni…think of deep hues of purple or crimson, and of perfumes heavily delectable” gives a feeling of unsurpassed but dangerous beauty, which also rings of sin with the red hues it brings to mind. Through his linguistic style, Hawthorne is able to delicately lend a greater understanding to his characters and works.
In his writings, Hawthorne employs a common theme of Puritan ideals and the disgust towards men of deeper knowledge, while criticizing both his former religion and the controlling scientist. In his short stories “The Birth Mark” and “The Prophetic Pictures,” Hawthorne condemns the power and knowledge which scientists have that places them on a level next to God. The Scarlet Letter talks about the embodiment of scientists as Satan himself, undoing the sacred work of God, while men of science are portrayed as cold and devoid of feeling for humanity in the short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” All of these stories, though differing slightly in their descriptions, all condemn science as a means of manipulating man unnaturally, an act which, ironically, is performed by the Puritans who criticize it so in their own communities. Through different readings and linguistic techniques, Hawthorne is able to communicate his feelings towards Puritanism and science and evaluate both without receiving too much reproach from either. Using his unique literary skills, Hawthorne targets his work towards two opposite audiences and is able to get his common themes of the wickedness of the scientist and the corruption of Puritanism across to each.
