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. Georgiana is a beautiful woman, and like any other woman, wants to please her husband. Aylmer is a scientist, and he is a man who strives for perfection in every aspect of his life. Georgiana’s appearance is nearly perfect, except a tiny crimson hand shaped birthmark on her left cheek. Throughout this story, the birthmark haunts Aylmer, which leads …show more content…
Until she married Aylmer, Georgiana always saw the birthmark as a good thing, and knew that it was natural. The thought was mutual with her previous lovers who explained that the birthmark was “some fairy, at her birth hour, had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s cheek, and left this impress there, in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts.” (291). It was said, “Many a desperate swain would have risked his life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand.” (291). This shows that the mark was a mystery to these other men, which had given her power over their hearts. This power the mark was supposed to give her, and had given her in the past, did not work on her own husband because of his need for perfection. It hurt Georgiana very deeply when her husband, a man who was supposed to think she was perfect in every way, told her this mark was an imperfection. Georgiana wanted to please her husband more than anything, and she would go to any length for him to think of her as a perfect being. Aylmer, being a scientist, was completely obsessed with perfection. However, he did not realize that one can’t tamper or change with the imperfections of nature, and that nothing on the human level can every be, or remain, perfect. The love he had for science in one hand, and the love he has for his wife on the …show more content…
Aylmer is very controlling, and wants to control every single aspect of his life, not excluding his wife. When he looks at her, all he sees is the mark of imperfection, and he has always strived to make everything perfect. Throughout this short story, we never get the impression that Aylmer is truly in love with his wife. Only after Georgiana agrees to let Aylmer experiment on her to remove the birthmark is when Aylmer shows any sort of affection towards her. This shows Aylmer’s need to manipulate any given situation for his own benefit. In this case, he benefits showing his wife compassion by being able to make her perfect, removing her imperfection. Aylmer’s obsession with perfection was the ultimate cause of Georgiana’s death. Aylmer showed his wife an experiment where he tried to grow a beautiful plant, but when she touched it, the plant died just as she did when he experimented on her. This is a prime example of how you cannot adjust the imperfections of
There is a thin line between love and hate. Love is having a strong affection for another person, place, or thing and sometimes, it makes people do crazy things. Whether it is a woman chopping off hair due to a bad breakup or placing permanent tattoos on the body for commitment, one will go to major extremes to satisfy their passion for love. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, “The Birthmark,” a psychotic scientist strives for perfection, not only leading to the death of his beautiful wife, but overall attempting to have power and control over nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism and foreshadowing to display the thematic complexities of mortality and human imperfection that the birthmark personifies psychologically and symbolically in the relationship between scientist and his loving test subject.
The most prevalent symbol in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark,” and the one that causes Aylmer to put perfection against dissatisfaction, is the birthmark itself. The birthmark stands for more than just physical imperfection. On a physical level, it stands for what scientists now refer to as nature in the “nature vs. nurture” debate. Georgiana was born with it. It is a part of her body and who she is. It also stands for nature in another sense of the word. It is nature’s “hand” against man’s, against Aylmer’s. We see that when Aylmer tries to cut the birthmark out, but instead the birthmarks disappearance kills Georgiana. On a subjective spiritual level, it is a symbol much like a mirror: it reflects the heart or mind of the beholder. It is on this level that the most analysis can be found, for the different interpretations of the birthmark show us the differences in each characters personality and the result of these differences. Finally, on an obje...
One of the major themes in "The Birthmark" is man’s obsession with perfection. Through the birthmark on Georgiana, Hawthorne is able to portray that nature didn’t intend for things to be perfect. People are not perfect because the human condition is imperfect. Aylmer’s desire to make his wife perfect is doomed to failure because perfection, Hawthorne suggests, is the exclusive province of heaven that cannot be found on earth. Because she becomes an ideal being, completely unmarred, Georgiana is no longer able to exist in this
The attempted removal of Georgiana’s birthmark by Aylmer signifies a desire to conquer nature and reveals a hidden quality within Aylmer. The first instance in which the reader sees Aylmer trying to conquer or control nature is subtle, it is near the beginning of the story and the narrator says “[Aylmer] persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife” (211). The common belief is that love occurs naturally and cannot be forced. It seems as though the narrator chooses to state that Aylmer persuaded his wife, rather than fell in love with her, in order to indicate early on in the text Aylmer’s tendencies toward manipulating nature. Later in the
“The Birth Mark” is a story of an elusive search for perfection when an alchemist named Aylmer who is committed to his work, and is married to a beautiful woman named Georgiana, attempts to remove his wife’s birthmark. Aylmer brings up the topic of her birthmark soon after their marriage and says that she would be perfect if it were removed. This statement completely destroys Georgiana’s self-image, and now believes that she is ugly since her husband believes the same. Georgiana is so devoted to her husband that she views herself utterly through his vision of
Uttering heartless words to a partner about their flaws is a reflection of one’s insecurity in the relationship. The short story “The Birthmark” gives readers insight into Aylmer, a questionable scientist who fails at experiments, and his wife Georgiana, an obedient wife who fulfills her husband’s commands. Aylmer is insecure and as a result denigrates Georgiana about her birthmark to purposefully make her despise the mark. Georgiana never thought of her birthmark as a flaw because men were enchanted by her fairy-like miniature hand with a shade of crimson. However, Georgiana being the good wife that she is, agrees to become her husband’s experiment to get the birthmark removed in order to make Aylmer happy. In this story it is evident that
Torvald and Alymer think they’re inlove with their wives but, they are not. Alymer and Torvald love their possessions, similar to loving a car. They love the feeling and the moments they get to spend on earth mesmerizing their beautiful uniqueness, but they do not care about the wellbeing of the other person. “Women define visibility as including communication, verbal and non-verbal, show the slipperiness of the slope, and raise question of consciousness.” (Deutsch, 1889) In both relationships there was a lack of communication, intimacy, and respect. Nora and Georgianna both wanted their loved ones to show concern for them even in rough circumstances, but both men failed either because of selfness or love of science. When Torvald received the IUE from Krogstat, his immediate response was “I’m saved!” Being selfish his first thoughts are of himself rather than, his kids, and Nora. Aylmer’s attention to his wife’s birthmark over time, drove Georgianna insane to the point where she would die trying to remove a little mark on her face. Alymer started to point out that she is no longer perfect because of the birthmark. After you marry someone you accept their flaws internally and externally, and both failed to do so therefore, they lost their wives.
medical practices are beneficial; they are done to cure people from illness and to save
...ection. By removing the birthmark from Georgiana’s face, Aylmer has taken away her humanity thus leading Georgiana to her death. Georgiana cannot live anymore because she is no longer a human being. Therefore claiming that science has its limits over nature and if those limits are crossed the consequences could be fatal.
One of the main themes discussed in this story is perfection which was evident by Aylmer obsessing over making his wife perfect by removing the birthmark off
In The Birthmark, Aylmer is married to Georgiana, who has a birthmark on her cheek. Aminadab is the servant for Aylmer and therefore needs to obey him and do as he says. One way in which he does this is helping Aylmer with the experiment and procedure that he is going to use to remove Georgiana’s birthmark. Aylmer has become obsessed with removing the birthmark to ideally make Georgiana perfect. Aminadab appears to know what is going to happen. He makes this quick remark, “If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark” (4). This comment shows how Aminadab doesn’t agree with Aylmer’s decision and thinks that the outcome may prove catastrophic for the married couple. The main theme of the story is science versus nature. The science part comes from Aylmer, who uses a potion to try to perfect Georgiana, but that obviously goes horribly wrong.
After a deeper analysis of the characters in the story “The Birthmark” it is easy to see there are multiple hidden meanings throughout. The characteristics and actions of Aylmer, Georgiana, Amenidab and Nature help us to see deeper into the characters and see their true motivations and meanings in the story.
The birthmark scares Aylmer because it reminds him that she’s human and not immortal. He sees the same type of imperfections in her that he’s trying to fix with science. “In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death Aylmer’s sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object,”(The Birthmark,7). Aylmer wants to try and fix her birthmark that she was born with because he is disgusted by it and wants to use his science on her. Georgiana does not want him to fix it because she was born with it and he saw it when he married her and does not understand why he has a problem with it
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1843 short story entitled “The Birth-Mark” is, at face value, a traditionally formatted Hawthorne story; it is a textbook example of his recurrent theme of the unpardonable sin as committed by the primary character, Aylmer, the repercussions of which result in the untimely death of his wife, Georgiana. However, there seems to be an underlying theme to the story that adds a layer to Hawthorne’s common theme of the unpardonable sin; when Aylmer attempts to reconcile his intellectual prowess with his love for his wife, his efforts turn into an obsession with perfecting his wife’s single physical flaw and her consequent death. This tragedy occurs within the confines of traditional gender
Every man before has always complimented Georgiana on her sweet imperfection. People would tell her all the time that true beauty was in that little blemish. Aylmer, being the man of Science wanted to change what nature had created. Typically, we all know better than to go against Nature, but not Aylmer. Georgiana finally agreed to let her husband remove the birthmark due to a frightening dream Aylmer had encountered. Aylmer started working on a potion to remove Georgiana 's birthmark. As soon as Georgiana sipped the potion, she suddenly falls into a deep coma-like state. The birthmark magically disappears from Georgina 's face. However, as the birthmark fades away, so does Georgina 's life. Hawthorne uses Georgiana 's character to symbolize beauty in this story. Georgiana is already made perfect in the eyes of Nature and all other men, expect Aylmer. Aylmer, representing Science, tries to change Georgiana 's beauty that Nature has created. Aylmer was successful in removing the birthmark, but unsuccessful in keeping Georgiana alive. Aylmer was too intertwined in Science to realize that Georgiana was perfectly made by Nature. Nature paid Aylmer back for trying to correct Georgiana 's face by taking the life of his beloved