Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Birth-Mark'

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth-Mark”, Aylmer is plagued by the smallest mark on his wife’s cheek and eventually kills her in an attempt to remove it. I explored what happened after her death and instead of following Hawthorne’s ending where Aylmer is pleasantly surprised with the removal of Georgiana’s birthmark, I looked at what might happen if the birthmark stayed on her cheek. I wanted to delve deeper into the true madness of his character and how he might come to the realization that Georgiana’s imperfections were part of what made nature beautiful and he was foolish to believe that by controlling nature, he might find perfection. An important part of my alternate ending was the characterization of the birthmark itself.

Though it may seem backwards, by not referring to Georgiana by name, I was able to convey Aylmer’s feelings about her. He is more concerned with the removal of her birthmark than her humanity. I referred to her by name in the very first few paragraphs, simply to show how she was once human but then I resolved to simply saying “her” or not even mentioning a person belonged to the mark. It seems that throughout the scene, only Aylmer and the birthmark are in the room at war with each other. Finally, as he comes to terms with his detrimental infatuation with the mark on his wife’s cheek, Georgiana is brought back to the scene and she is referred to by name. I made this choice to show how she became human again in Aylmer’s eyes even with her imperfections as he realizes those are what make the world around us whole and complete. The narration in my story shifted significantly from the narration in Hawthorne’s. “The Birthmark” has a third-person omniscient narrator, however we seem to focus more on Georgiana. In my extended ending, I show only the mind of Aylmer. However, I chose to narrate it in third-person limited so readers could understand his actions more clearly without the bias of first person