Yesterday, I read "The Birthmark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It revolves around an obsessive scientist and the woman he marries, who quietly exists as what is basically natures most beautiful creation. Men fall to her feet. She is essentially flawless; except for one thing. She has a big old crimson birthmark on her cheek.
While many men find the birthmark adds to her beauty, or claim that they do, the scientist feels only the opposite. He loathes it to the point of obsession, to the point that he dreams of it and shudders convulsively at the sight. At first, his disgust is painful for his wife... but soon she begins to loathe it even more than he.
The scientists obsession eventually leads him to a final "cure" for the birthmark... With a possible risk. Without a second thought the wife agrees, drinks the cure and falls into a deep slumber. And... it kills her. In his search to eradicate the stamp of humanity, of imperfection on the world's most nearly perfect being, he destroys it.
I love this story because it makes human imperfection a necessity -something beautiful, something to never be destroyed.
I love it because of the astounding prose it is written in.
But most of all it just makes me wonder...
If I had a big-ass, crimson handprint on my face, would you still buy my cd?
think about it. peace up, a-town down.
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