Nature vs. Idealism

    In human society, it is very common for trends and standards to come about and these standards can shape an idealistic way of life that may be impossible to truly achieve. This is because human nature and idealistic standards tend to have conflicts due to the fact that certain standards of society try to go against nature such as the standards of beauty, self-worth, and overall quality of life.  Ironically because of our human nature to want to be loved and accepted we distance ourselves from our natural desires in an attempt to live up to what society has brought forth so that we are loved and accepted.

    In the story “Hills Like White Elephants”, by Ernest Hemingway, we meet a young girl and her partner as they wait for a train to Madrid. As they wait for the train and share a few drinks the young woman starts to bring up how she would like to keep the baby, and thus start a family, much to her partner’s disapproval. He tried to convince her otherwise but in a way so that it would look like it was her decision, saying “if you don’t want to you don’t have to…but it’s perfectly simple” (Hemingway 477). He kept telling her that once she got rid of the baby they could go back to how their lives were before and be happy but she doesn’t truly want that. Even though she understands that they “can’t have the whole world” (Hemingway 477) and that they would be restricted in what they can do if she had a baby she seemed more than willing to give that up. It becomes clear that she actually wants to keep the baby and start a family but the reason she is doing this is because she wants the love and approval of her partner. In this story, the side of nature is the girl that wants to start a family while the side of idealism is her partner who doesn’t want a family, at least not at that moment, and just wants to live his life with nothing to hold him back. It is in human nature to want to settle down and start a family, especially for women, but society seems to glorify those that have the freedom of not being tied down with a family and are able to do what they want to do, go where they want to go. Her partner’s ideal life is just them together, doing what they want to do and go where they want to go without having to worry about a child, although he is slightly willing to give up those freedoms to make her happy. 

     In the story “The Birthmark”, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which details the life of a scientist named Aylmer and his wife Georgiana we see another form of nature versus idealism with something as natural as a birthmark. Georgina has a small red birthmark on her cheek that she has grown to love and accept as part of herself and most people around her seem to think that it is rather unique and adds to her beauty. Her husband and a few women, however, find the birthmark ugly and are very vocal about their opinion. He asks her “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?” (Hawthorne 1) and tells her that he thinks the birthmark is ugly. This discussion of her birthmark shifts Georgiana’s view of herself. The one person that she thought would love her no matter what was telling her that they thought she was ugly because of a mark that she honestly thought made her beautiful. She starts to doubt her beauty and becomes willing to do anything to regain the love and affection of her husband, even if that means removing the birthmark. They spend the rest of the story trying to find a way to remove it after Aylmer has a dream in which he tries to remove her birthmark but in the end kills her. He finally makes an elixir that would supposedly remove her birthmark, which after she drinks it actually works but at the cost of her life. This could be considered as symbolism of the effects of one’s idealistic view versus what nature has created, where in this story Georgiana is nature and Aylmer is societal ideology. In the process of trying to shape nature to his idealistic views of beauty Aylmer lost sight of the very essence that made his wife beautiful and unique to begin with. Much like how modern society is today Aylmer was so focused on his version of beauty that he tried to force nature ( his wife)  to fit that mold.

      There are many examples of human nature vs. societies ideal life but the one that comes to mind now is the song “Mrs. Potato Head”, by Melanie Martinez, which in essence talks about the human nature of wanting to be loved and being willing to do anything for that love but how society can take advantage of that natural want. The music video of the song depicts a young girl happily watching television until she sees some commercials that talk about things that women can do to make themselves look prettier for society like wear a wig to have nice blonde hair, and taking dietary pills to become slimmer. When the song starts the rest of the video depicts a young woman visiting her boyfriend who then showers her with gifts before giving her a certificate for plastic surgery so that she would stay looking young, and therefore beautiful, forever. At first, she was unsure about getting the surgery was soon convinced once she believed that he would stay with her no matter what the outcome was. She gets the surgery but while recovering she soon discovered that he lied and was now seeing another woman who had natural beauty, something that she gave up in hopes of him loving her. The video ends one the little girl who realizes the effects of trying to please society and simply goes back to watching cartoons, something she was happily doing before the commercials, which represented society, started telling her what to do in order to be perfect.    

This song along with these two short stories perfectly illustrate the human want of feeling loved and accepted and how society can manipulate people to conform to their standards of beauty, causing people to do whatever it takes to feel this love and acceptance. This natural human desire can lead people into doing drastic things like, give up their internal happiness and freewill in hopes of feeling validated. The standards of society tend to go against the standards and desires of nature which could in turn cause people to struggle with their identities in society and their natural desires. This is not to say that having an ideology of things like a way of life or a standard of beauty is completely terrible but that we shouldn’t try to suppress our natural desires in favour of society’s ideology if it takes away our internal happiness and makes one feel less about themselves. The ideology of society is just that an ideology, no one is truly expected to fit every single standard that has been set   

Work Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The Birthmark.” The Literature Network. 2010. Web. 26 Jan. 2010. <http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/125/>.

Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.

Ed. R.V. Cassill. New York: Norton & Company, 1995. 443-447.

Melanie Martinez. Mrs. Potato Head. 2015. CD.