Encouraging Imperfection

Encouraging Imperfection

This week The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman both explore obsessive, destructive mindsets that lead to explosive behavior while I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth explores a search for peace. Hawthorne introduces Aylmer in The Birthmark, a man who is consumed with the idea of removing his wife’s birthmark. Gilman parallels this theme in The Yellow Wallpaper, with a wife who has a frantic obsession with a particular yellow wallpaper. Both stories result in a loss of control for both victims of fixation. For The Birthmark, our main character ends up killing his wife and in The Yellow Wallpaper, our main character ends up tearing down the wallpaper that drives her mad. On the contrary, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud ties together the unity of nature and man. The speaker searches for and eventually finds solitude with the nature around him. Last week I had the privilege of attending the Mass of The Holy Spirit at Loyola’s chapel with my classmates. This Jesuit tradition encourages students to come together and not lose sight of God in their lives. We welcome the Holy Spirit into our lives to guide and lead us to the liberation we need to succeed as students and children of God. I found a connection between the enormous emotions we feel with the beginning of a new academic year and the fixation for perfection that drive our characters to madness.

In The Birthmark, we learn about Alymer, a man who struggles to let go of his wife's imperfection. He lacks the understanding in finding beauty in flaws. This eventually leads him to murder his wife, failing “to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present” (Hawthorn 477). “Perfect” is an unworldly word for our humanity. It is more commonly associated with the Catholic religion, thus, connecting this theme to the Mass of The Holy Spirit. There, we were all encouraged to take life as it comes our way and power through to invite imperfections and make them your own definition of “perfect”.

In The Yellow Wallpaper, John, one of the main characters ignores the reality that his wife is disturbed by the yellow wallpaper in the house. He controls his wife to an extreme and is too consumed with himself to understand his wife’s struggle. His wife states, “ I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this painting!” (Gilman 390). John’s behavior is extremely selfish and in the Catholic faith, we are encouraged to judge others as we want to be judged. In the Gospel Matthew 7:2 it states, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you”. It is important to recognize the struggles of others and encourage their strengths rather than mask their weaknesses.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud branches in a slightly different direction than our other two readings. The term ‘wandering” implies a sense of aimless travel.  The speaker compares himself to a cloud that is floating amongst hills and over lakes, blankets of trees, and daffodils that he describes as gold. He captures the scenery but it is only by the end of the poem that he comes to realize the beauty within the world and which grants him a sense of liberation, “which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils” (Lines 23-25). As sinners, we wander from God, like the lonely cloud. However, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are allowed to see the beauty in God’s creation. This direction leads us out of our lost ways and brings us solitude with ourselves and with God.

The readings from this week preach the importance of appreciating imperfection, encouraging others struggles, and finding a guiding path to peace. The Mass of The Holy Spirit paved a path for me to walk this semester that imitates the teachings from The Birthmark, The Yellow Wallpaper, and I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.