Aminadab: the Body, the Religious, the Worker

Portrayed allegorically by Hawthorne as the counterpoint to Aylmer, the character Aminadab, Aylmer’s assistant, in “The Birthmark” most simply represents the human body (where Aylmer is the human mind, Georgiana the heart). Hawthorne spells out this distinction directly upon introducing the character: “With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical nature, while Aylmer… [was] no less apt a type of the spiritual element” (1324).[1] For Hawthorne, the human body’s connection to nature is too close for comfort. As we see in “Young Goodman Brown,” nature is an inherently evil place, and thus the human body is evil in its animalistic instincts. Aminadab especially exemplifies the threat of the natural body through his clear physical superiority to Aylmer (his “bulky frame” and “vast strength” are indeed a potential physical menace to his master (1324) ). Thus at the beginning of “The Birthmark,” all signs seem to point to Aylmer as the “good guy” and Aminadab as the “bad guy” as they relate to religion.

Nonetheless, the allegory is more complicated that it first appears to be. Scholars have noted that Hawthorne’s choice of name for Aminadab is perplexing enough to inherently question the character’s allegorical significance. The most important origin for the name is the biblical usage, in which Aminadab is a Levite priest in the Old Testament. Some scholars have posited this connection as indicative that Aminadab represents not the human body, but religion as a whole (by contrast with Aylmer, who represents science). I would argue that Hawthorne marries the two allegories, that of the human body and that of religion, with the specific intention that Aminadab should represent primitive religion. The priest Aminadab in the Bible is a precursor to Moses, so his worship of Yahweh resembles, to some extent, pagan practice (anthropomorphism of Yahweh, sacrificial ceremonies, etc.). Hawthorne’s Aminadab is undeniably “of the earth,” or primitive, and thus he is a symbol for the crude (in Hawthorne’s opinion) beginnings of Christianity. How then are we to reconcile the two images of Aminadab, one as primitively religious, and one as an evil threat?

I believe the answer is to be found in Brodhead’s description of the American nineteenth century. Brodhead argues that the rapidly changing country begins to see an emergence of new classes and players in the social schema. Though he focuses mostly on the new intellectual elite, Brodhead provides by contrast an interpretation of the emerging immigrant working class. These new members of society “became a phobic embodiment of all imagined threats to elite superiority” (164). I would argue that in “The Birthmark,” Aminadab also represents this foreign working class. We have already seen how the character is tied to the Old Testament, thus I believe an interpretation of Amindab as a Jew is valid. Even if this connection is refuted, the name “Aminadab” is decidedly exotic, especially in relation to the majority of Hawthorne’s characters’ names in his body of work. Furthermore, much of Aminidab’s intimidating, if not frightening, appearance originates in his description as dark, swarthy, and “smoky in aspect.” His darkness lends to the idea of his possibly foreign origins. Finally, the character is naught but a “human machine” to Aylmer, one who can easily execute the particulars of his master’s experiments but who cannot “comprehend a single principle” therein (1324). Thus he typifies Hawthorne’s conception of the immigrant/foreign working class. It is in this specific societal characterization that the evil of Aminadab’s connection to the natural body and to primitive religion is realized as a threat.  

Brodhead recognizes that the elite attempted to “Americanize” these immigrant workers through the imposition of an American literary education. Hawthorne, through Aylmer, similarly attempts to mold Aminadab into a tool rather than a threat. To Aylmer, Aminadab is literally a “man of clay” (1329). Yet though he clearly follows his master’s orders, Aminadab retains his subversive viewpoint as a non-elite when he disagrees with Aylmer’s attempt to alter Georgiana’s appearance: “then [Aminadab] muttered to himself;– ‘If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birth-mark’”(1324). Here we see that Aminadab’s symbolic connection to the human body overcomes his duty to his elite master: he reveres Georgiana’s natural, imperfect body. This ideological threat to Aylmer is reinforced at the end when Georgiana dies and we hear Aminidab’s “hoarse, chuckling laugh” echoing in the background (1331). Interestingly, Hawthorne uses Aminadab as his vessel of judgment against Aylmer. The danger of Aminadab to Aylmer thus transfers to align Aminadab’s position, partially, with Hawthorne’s; in his critique of science, Hawthorne allows his allegory for primitive religion to reign supreme.

What are we to take from this ambiguous description of Aminadab? Does Hawthorne, in the end, value any representative of religious belief, even one of Satan and/or Christianity’s primitive (Jewish) origins, when it comes to his defamation of science? If so, it is interesting that the working class foreigner is pardoned for its threat to the elite in such a case as this. I wonder if Brodhead would see Hawthorne’s pardoning of Aminadab’s otherness in the same way he sees the nineteenth century American’s acceptance of regional, “othered” writing: as a somewhat false acceptance of non-elite voices.

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[1] Here, Hawthorne has yet to reveal his disparagement of Aylmer’s scientific pursuits as blasphemous, so his embodiment of “the spiritual element” later is recast as in fact the intellectual (scientific) element.