Spring of the System: Temporal Fixation in "The Birthmark"

If Clover claims in “Autumn of the System” that our current economy is the onset of a capitalist Winter, when was Spring? He explains that the Autumn of the system is the decline of a “cycle of accumulation;” hence the beginning of that cycle must be its Spring. When discussing late capitalism in the United States, I believe it fair to argue then that one “Spring” took place during the American Industrial Revolution and the rapid national and colonial expansion that followed. The American Empire, as it were, saw significant westward and overseas growth during the early to mid-nineteenth century as well as a continuance of financial development as industry and agriculture grew together. Andrew Jackson’s dissolution of the National Bank in 1832 prompted a financial system of credit and loans from smaller banks that came to define the American economy at that time. In contrast with what Clover posits as the inability in Autumn for the “hegemon” to “forward its accumulation via real expansion” (48), this “Spring” for capitalism saw endless possibilities for expansion. There was no “phantom space” (48), only real space.

            If, then, the literature of Autumn is poetry that converts the temporal to the spatial in reflection of late capitalism’s projected view of “labor time as world space” (48), it would follow that the vast spatial possibilities in the nineteenth century Spring might manifest literature that reverses Clover's axial transmutation and converts the spatial to the temporal. Indeed, the American nineteenth century saw a predominance of narrative fiction over poetry, and the poetry that did exist was generally narrative (excepting that of Emily Dickinson). Not only does Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” (1843) fit the bill with its straightforwardly narrative structure as a contrast with Clover’s formal analysis of Autumnal poets, Hawthorne also specifically contemplates the importance of time over space through his character Aylmer’s scientific pursuits, again in opposition to Clover’s reading of subject matter in the twenty-first-century poems. We find out that before the story begins, Aylmer has extensively pursued scientific problems of space in the physical world: “the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud-region, and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth… from the dark bosom of the earth” (1324). The vast array of geographical understanding that Aylmer purportedly has indicates a dissatisfaction with scientific pursuits that are grounded in the space of the earth itself. Whereas space for Autumnal poets is “phantom,” a mystery, and something to search for, Aylmer sees no further mystery in the spatial questions of the world. Now, he begins to look forward to an understanding of time through his preoccupation with mortality.

            After Georgiana faints in his laboratory, Aylmer attempts to soothe her with some “light and playful secrets” of science, or optical illusions (1325). Georgiana is amused with the “procession of external existence” that “flitted across a screen;” this procession “perfectly represent[s]” reality, or what we could dub the spatial realities of physical existence (1325). However, Aylmer soon wearies of this and reveals an illusion more sacred to him: “Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel, containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest at first, but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant, shooting upward from the soil… and amid [the leaves] was a perfect and lovely flower” (1325). Clearly Aylmer plays with time here. He manipulates temporal laws in a way that is more magical than any previous “spatial” illusion. This magical flower remains bound to the cycle of time, however, when Aylmer indicates that “the flower will wither in a few moments, and leave nothing save its brown seed-vessels– but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself” (1325). The cycle is proportionate in the speed of the flower’s birth and the speed of its demise.

            Aylmer is therefore dissatisfied with his flower trick; his ultimate goal is to subvert the laws of time completely and concoct the Elixir Vitae that will prolong life indefinitely. In this way it could be argued that Aylmer distorts the temporal in a way similar to the late capitalist system and the Autumnal poets. Clover explains that through the use of credit, the financial system “pass[es] off time as space” (44), which could similarly explain Aylmer’s attempt to understand and manipulate time as he has understood and manipulated space. However, Aylmer’s ultimate failure in removing Georgiana’s birthmark nullifies a possible conversion of time to space that Hawthorne sees as an abomination. He reasserts the translation of the spatial to the temporal in the last sentence of the story and reinstates the important narrative continuity of time: “The momentary circumstance was too strong for [Aylmer]; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of Time, and living once for all in Eternity, to find the perfect Future in the present” (1332). Hawthorne indicates that Aylmer “failed to looked beyond the shadowy scope of Time” because that shadowy scope is endless, impossible to be subverted. Further, his failure rests on his denunciation of the present in favor of the future, while Hawthorne tells us that “a perfect Future” can be found in the present. Such a claim opposes Clover’s description of “late capitalism’s drive to plunder and hollow out the future” (45).

            Whether Hawthorne was directly influenced in “The Birthmark” by the economic “Spring” of industrialization and expansion is open to interpretation. While the most readily available context for his conversion of the spatial to the temporal may be his religious belief in the immortality of the afterlife, one could argue that the emphasis on vocation in the story grounds it in an economic context. In either case, “The Birthmark” demonstrates a formal and thematic counterpoint to the loss of time to space in the Autumnal literature of our system. If our system’s Spring valued time, and its Autumn space, what is to follow in the literature of the next cycle’s Spring?