Men and women will always strive for perfection whether it is in themselves or in each other. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s allegory “The Birthmark, “ the audience is informed of a young couple, Aylmer and Georgiana. Then soon transpires into a husband's obsession with his wife's flaw, “The birthmark.” The young husband gets too wrapped up in fixing his wife that he forgets to show her attention and love. Incapable of feeling anything but determination to make his wife perfect; he uses a potion to remove the birthmark. The potion successfully begins to fade the birthmark however, the potion also fades his wife's life as well. . Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism to give “The Birthmark” a deeper meaning, foreshadowing to build suspense, and third …show more content…
The use of third person omniscient tence gives the readers the ability to know Aylmer’s and Georgiana’s thoughts throughout the story. We can understand the tense of the narrator when he states, “Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana” (617). Many believe that Hawthorne is showing the readers that humans themselves are full of limitations that they are unaware of. The narrator of this story seems to have a lot of harsh opinions about the birthmark itself. Lynn Shakinovsky states her believe that, “Much critical attention has been focused on the mark; clearly the way in which the mark is "read" is fundamental to any interpretation of the story” (1). Thus when Georgiana dies the readers are unaware of Aylmer's emotions due to the narrator. At this point readers must really be dreading to have the ability to read Aylmer’s mind. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, was a dark romanticism full of drama and suspense. The short story’s twisted plot line and daring characters made for a great read. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism, foreshadowing, and third person omniscient tence to helped the readers deeper understand what his meaning behind the
This style and tone helps readers better visualize the story. Additionally, his use of the omniscient third person point of view helps readers better understand the thoughts and actions of the story’s characters. One of the greatest examples of foreshadowing in “The Birthmark” occurred when Hawthorne foreshadowed the ending by having Aylmer tell his wife about a dream that he had. In the dream, Aylmer and his servant, Aminadab, attempted an operation to remove the birthmark; but the “deeper the knife went, the deeper sank the hand, until its grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; when this happened, her husband was resolved to wrench it away in order to remove the birthmark.” (Hawthorne) Through this dream, Hawthorn indicates that even in his dream Aylmer was willing to sacrifice his wife in the pursuit of
In every story, poem, play, and movie symbolism is present. Symbols help the reader understand the story and their characters. Often times the symbols bring a deeper meaning to a story or poem. In The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorn there are many symbols that bring the reader to the deeper meaning of the story. This story is about a man and woman who get married. The woman is perfect except for the small birthmark on her cheek. Her husband tells her it is ugly causing her to feel ugly. She agrees to get it removed. The man is a scientist and makes an elixir to get rid of the birthmark. The serum kills the woman. The Birthmark has many symbols including, but not
In the short passage, “The Birthmark” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a husband named Aylmer and his wife Georgiana dispute over a beauty mark displayed on the wife's left cheek. Aylmer tries convincing Georgiana how perfect she would look if she had the birthmark removed from her face, but the Georgiana feels that it makes her unique and perfect in her own way. After persuading her to take a potion that Aylmer created to remove the birthmark, Georgiana awakens birthmark free, but slowly dies. Hawthorne uses many different literary devices in his texts to help his readers get a better understanding of the story. Three literary elements used in the story would be Moral Criticism, Feminist Criticism and Symbolism.
Hawthorne describes Georgiana’s birth-mark as, “the symbol of … [her] liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death” (292). In the story, Georgiana’s birth-mark is directly stated to be a symbol; a symbol of Georgiana’s humanity. Her birth-mark is a representation of her flaws, as said by Hawthorne, “that sole token of human imperfection” (301). When Aylmer removes Georgiana’s birth-mark her humanity is no longer there. In effect, Georgiana dies because Aylmer could not accept the one attribute that made her human. The reader can note this when Georgiana exclaimed, “you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying” (301). Aylmer could not embrace what nature had given Georgiana; he failed to seek what was there and physical, instead hoping for perfection in the future. Hawthorne shows the reader that Aylmer could not accept the one part of Georgiana that made her human, that gave her life; and in effect she dies. Hawthorne’s use of symbolism assists in describing Georgiana and brings out what type of person Aylmer really
She is the wife of a science-obsessed man, she is alone and placed second to his first love. That alone is a dangerous situation. I believe that she might be internally fighting for first place once she realizes that the only thing that will please him is removing the birthmark from her cheek. She is almost immediately aware of the potential consequence of removing the birthmark, “"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself.”” (Hawthorne 215). Aylmer tries to reassure her that he has thought this through many times and that nothing bad would happen. I am not sure if she quite trusts him as much as she wants to please him and hear him stop speaking of her birthmark in such a negative way. Georgiana becomes repulsed of herself due to her husband 's incessant need to perfect what has no fatal
The Birthmark, a literary piece written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, tells the story of the wedded couple Aylmer and Georgiana. There are many literary elements included in the story, an important example is the stories motifs. There are many motifs in The Birthmark, however the one with the biggest impact is the reoccurring colors or red and white.
The tone for “The Birthmark” is insensitive yet romantic. Like many of Hawthorne’s works, “The Birthmark" is an indirect representation of a fable and much of the parable content is documented through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of symbolic notations. Many of the symbols in “The Birthmark" pertain to deeper parabolic meanings. For example, the permanence of the birth mark that stains Georgiana’s cheek is in the shape of a crimson hand which is evident that nature had a genuine hand in the “imperfection" placed upon Georgiana’s cheek. Symbolic notations in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark" are also evident in other characters as well. For exemplification purposes the character Aminadab’s name is derived from the book of Genesis in the Holy Bible. This character happens to be described as a beastly man who is despite contrary belief more of a man than Aylmer because he is familiar with his natural being and verbally expresses his admittance to Aylmer that he would not remove the birthmark. Whereas, Aylmer is a selfish scientist obsessed with abolishing the birthmark.
In both his short story and his novel, Hawthorne uses the literary device of foreshadowing to intrigue the reader. Doing so creates an effect of suspense in the novel and encourages the reader the keep reading. Hawthorne uses a different form of foreshadowing in these two stories that include ambiguity. These sentences are placed at the beginning of the text, and clearly convey two contrasting themes/plots of the tale that follows. In The Birthmark Hawthorne introduces the rivalry between Aylmer’s love for science and Aylmer’s love for his wife by writing, “His love for his wife might prove the stronger of the two,” essentially giving away precisely what the story will consist of. We find later that Aylmer, the main character of The Birthmark,
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birthmark”, Aylmer, is a scientist that challenges his love for science in combination against his love for a woman. After he dedicates his life to Georgiana, his wife, Aylmer slowly grows more and more disgust for the imperfection of a birthmark on her cheek. The birthmark is a crimson, red-shaped figure that only appears on her face when the natural rosiness of her face vanishes. As the birthmark begins to haunt Aylmer’s mind as the time goes by, he decides to surgically remove Georgiana’s mark from her cheek in his laboratory. As numerous attempts go by, Georgiana is instructed to drink a potion recipe--the birthmark finally disappears from her cheek, and she dies shortly after. First of all, as Alymer recollects his thoughts on his dream about Georgiana’s birthmark, he makes a final decision on
Obsession with perfection in the short story “The Birth Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne has a lot of the same issues we see in society today. Everyone strives to be perfect, but nobody can quite get there. In this short story, it is the classic tale of a woman, Georgiana, trying to be perfect for her husband, Aylmer. Georgiana caused her own death trying to be a truly perfect wife for her husband.
In his story, “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne foreshadows the fateful death of Georgiana by including a dialogue, in which she tells her husband to do anything he can to remove the birthmark off her face, regardless of the risk saying “Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust, -- life is a burden which I would fling down with joy.” Hawthorne displays Georgianna openly accept the risk of death, which was the consequence. This also is an example of change over time in Hawthorne’s work. Originally, Georgianna saw the birthmark as a positive thing that made her more attractive, as other men loved it. Howbeit, after hearing her Aylmer’s negative opinion on her birthmark,
In the short story "The Birthmark" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne shows an underlying meaning in his text that striving for perfection is foolish and cannot be achieved without finality. He displays this through the use of symbols and allegories in the story. The use of those symbols and allegories helps show the morality aspect that he is trying to get through.
Hawthorne uses imagery in order to depict both the birthmark that “blemishes” the skin on Georgiana’s cheek, and the hospital-esque area
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.
The tone adopted by Hawthorne from the inception of the narrative toward Aylmer urges the reader to respect Aylmer’s scientific ambition—directly his triumph of head over heart, but indirectly his objectification of Georgiana and subsequent attempts to fix something that she never thought was a flaw. Not only is Aylmer’s obsession with getting rid of her birthmark selfish in that he does it for “the sake of giving himself peace” (647) rather than any desire to make his wife happy, he also admits to feeling guilt over his tyrannical treatment of her. For example, his “horror and disgust” in response to her facial blight rarely escapes her notice, and when she reacts poorly to his “convulsive shudder,” he attempts to soothe her and “release her mind from the burden of actual things” (650) as if she is an empty-headed infant in need of a pacifier. Furthermore, in response to her desperate request for its removal, he isolates her from humanity, administers potentially harmful concoctions into her rooms and body without her knowledge, and ultimately—and rapturously—succeeds in shrinking the mark at the cost of her