호손의 「반점」에 나타난 인종, 젠더, 국가

Abstract

By the 1840s the racial question was at the heart of scholarly discussion in the United States, and few writers could avoid vigorous discussions of superior and inferior races. This paper argues that “The Birthmark,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1843, is coded the political discourses on race and gender ideology. Aylmer, a newly wedded scientist, is anxious to remove a crimson stain upon Georgiana’s white cheek, which might indicate the ‘one drop of blood’ of African Americans in her artery. Aylmer desperately but unsuccessfully allocates the proper ‘place’ for wife, husband, underworker, white and black, not only from the fear of contamination by crossing the color line but also from the desire to fixate the normative gender roles of the middle-class ideology. His experiment and its failure imply deep anxiety of the white-men-nation to maintain the difference, which is a national fantasy undermined by the ineffaceable birthmark and unforgettable laughter of Aminadab.