The Birth-Mark The Birth-Mark is a piece of literary work that demonstrates the struggles between Man vs. Nature. The short story epitomes of the 1800s, is a time where the field of philosophy began to grow. It is believed that the only way people can learn is through experimentation and observation. The theme of The Birth-Mark can clearly be perceived as the foolishness of striving for perfection. Throughout the story a natural philosopher named Aylmer is famous for his scientific discoveries and he strives to be perfect in all of his experiments.
In the short story Aylmer is obsessed with his work. That is until he meets the most beautiful woman in the world named Georgiana. Georgiana represents the human imperfections that everyone is born with. Aylmer thinks that everything about Georgiana is perfect, that’s until he notices she has a distinct birthmark that is shaped like a hand on her left cheek. Aylmer, being the scientist he is, ask Georgiana “has it never occurred to you that that mark upon your cheek might be removed?” Georgiana replies that it has often been called a charm. Aylmer then exclaims “No dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature.”
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Instead he wants to use his science knowledge to try and debunk the birthmark from her face. “Aylmer’s somber imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.” In this particular part of the story Hawthorne is foreshadowing the everyday common person. Instead of being thankful for the things we as individuals have, we would rather strive to be perfect and do everything we possibly can to fit in. He demonstrates this by later saying “With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife’s face and recognized the symbol of imperfection.” (Hawthorne
In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark,” Aylmer, a crazed, “mad-scientist,” seeks to remove the scarlet handprint birthmark from his wife, Georgiana’s cheek. From the opening of the work, the third person narrator describes Aylmer’s obsession with science and the adverse effects it has had on his social life. Aylmer is tied up in this battle within himself and with his assigned association between the natural and the spiritual world. He wishes to have as much control over these colliding worlds as possible, granting himself god-like power and control in the process. In the art of manipulating nature through science, Aylmer believes he is able to alter the spiritual aspects of the natural as well. Aylmer’s focus on spirituality is Hawthorne’s way of commenting on mankind’s fixation on sin and redemption.
When Aylmer tells Georgiana that her so called “beauty” mark is in fact an “earthly imperfection”, she is immediately affected and overcome with a thought that had never occurred to her in all her life. Having always been told that the mark upon her face was that of beauty, she was angered and appalled shouting
Perfection is in the eye of the beholder. Often times scientific advancements attempt to recreate perfection and disregard nature’s way of being. “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne shows the disconnection and battle between science and Mother Nature. Hawthorne creates the character, Aylmer, to show the science side of the spectrum and to show the extent it could go to. The protagonist, Aylmer, believes that with science anything can be done. Aylmer is a very intelligent and famous scientist who has worked in various fields and on various projects. Although he is very successful He is consumed with his idea of scientific perfection and he lets it fog up his vision of his wife. His wife, Georgina, is described as being basically perfect except for a small red mark on her cheek that burdens her husband. The
The birthmark is a compelling story of one man’s obsession with his scientific ability to produce perfection. Aylmer, a scientist, is married to a Georgiana who is a very beautiful woman. Not long after getting married Georgiana’s birthmark, which is in the shape of a tiny handprint on her check, really begins to bother Aylmer. He sees it as a flaw in an other wise perfect woman. Georgiana knows that her birthmark disgusts him and, having grown up not bother at all by it, begins to hate it herself. He asks if she has ever considered having it removed. This is not something she has considered since other people in her life, especially men, have always seen it as a “charm”. Aylmer being an amazing scientist almost sees himself as god and feels that he has the power to remove this imperfection. Georgiana, bothered by her husband’s reaction to her birthmark, agrees to let him try to rid her of it. She is taken to his laboratory and he immediately begins to experiment. After she finds Aylmer’s book of experiments, which all end in failure, she for the first time, has some doubt about how this will work and confronts him. He reassures her and begins to try a multitude of methods, with the help of his assistant Aminadab, which do not work. At one point, there are several experiments going on and he even refers to himself as a “sorcerer” (Hawthorne 232). Finally, he produces a potion, which she drinks, and the birthmark begins to disappear! Slowly though, even as the experiment is working, Georgiana is fading away. He finds that ultimately, the birthmark was connected to her very soul and in his trying to act god like he actually kills her. Really this short story just proves that science has its limits and no man should try to act like G...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, is the story of a crazed scientist whose strive for perfection not only leads to the death of his beautiful wife, but the attempt of man to have power over nature. It follows the story of Aylmer and his obsession with removing the birthmark off his beautiful wife, Georgiana. “His unnatural fixation to his wife’s birthmark even consumes him in his sleep as he dreams of cutting it off much like scraping an apple off its skin.” (Snodgrass 29). This narrative explores the themes of perfection, and the conflict between science and the natural world.
After Georgina eventually passed, Aylmer was left to deal with what his obsession for perfection had brought upon his wife, who was thought to be the closest thing to perfection. Hawthorne uses many different literary devices throughout this story, with the most prevalent being his use of symbolism. of the book. Ed. Michael Meyer.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, “The Birthmark” was on the darker side of the Romantic Movement, but it was still a love story. There was a love of science and obsessing over beauty and perfection. Aylmer love Georgiana and she loved him. She was willing to die for him, and he was willing to experiment on her, even if meant losing her. Hawthorne put himself into his work, expressing fears, and emotions that was hard to put into words. His surroundings impacted the outcome of his
The story’s tone is one of romantic controversy, a dilemma at a high level of existence. The scientist’s love for his craft competes very intensively with his newfound love for his wife. It is also very psychological, strictly dealing with the raw mind of its subjects as if the ominous narrator told the story from inside their mind, rather than observe it from the outside. He describes the processes that one may take to reach a certain degree of knowledge and to find the elixir of life, which is described in this story as the ultimate goal of the scientific community. Also, the narrator is very opinionated about events in the story.
Yet they have not fully considered the implications of its underlying philosophy for many of the social and ethical concerns that dominate his canon and, importantly, for his aesthetic.” I found this article extremely hard to read and get through although some things throughout the article were quite interesting. In my opinion, the writer, Mary E. Rucker, did a fine job at staying on point throughout the entire article covering all the points she was making. I do agree with the interpretation that Mary E. Rucker did of the story “The Birth-Mark.” She does a good job going in depth on the character “Aylmer,” who is a brilliant yet misguided scientist and the protagonist of the story. Aylmer’s experiments and creations have made him famous in the scientific community. Although his intentions are good, Aylmer is a selfish and cruel man whose delusions ultimately kill his wife. Ultimately, this article did help me to understand “The Birth-Mark,” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, somewhat
The things in life he didn’t understand fascinated Nathaniel Hawthorne. He wrote a few stories in a literary journal called The Pioneer, one of them being “The Birthmark”. Time significantly influenced Hawthorne in creating this short story (Wheeler). Aylmer, the main character, uses the scientific experimentation throughout the story to remove the birthmark from his wife’s, Georgiana, face which results in him killing her. “The Birthmark” has attempting for perfection, the battle between science and nature, and the earthly love.
In Hawthorne’s story The Birthmark, the main character, Aylmer thinks his wife is the most beautiful person in the world and the only feature that keeps her from being perfect is a birthmark that is upon her cheek. When Aylmer mentions the birthmark to Georgiana, his wife, she becomes upset that her husband does not think he loves her, because of her birthmark. He tries many different ways to remove the mark, but all end with no solution to the problem. When Aylmer believes he has finally cracked the code of removing the unsightly blemish his concoction ends up killing his wife, for as the birthmark faded so did her life. Thus violating nature to remove the mark, committing a sin because he killed his wife, and standing alone since he killed the woman he loved. In The Artist of the Beautiful, main character, Owen Warland spent many years working to achieve the most beautiful creation he could make. Owen threw away his life and a chance at love just because he became obsessed with achieving the most beautiful creation. Owen later found himself disappointed even
In addition to his other works, Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark” is another example of female inferiority in society. Unlike The Scarlet Letter and “Old Esther Dudley,” which focus on the strength of women, “The Birth-Mark” focuses on the importance society places on female beauty. Aylmer, a scientist, marries the beautiful Georgiana, but she has one flaw: a red birthmark resembling a “human hand, though of the smallest pigmy size.” Aylmer asks Georgiana if she has ever considered having it removed since he feels that she “came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect…[is] the visible mark of earthly imperfection” (419). It can be observed that Georgiana is already a pretty woman, but Aylmer is obsessed with her being perfect. Georgiana was never concerned about the mark until Aylmer mentions it. After months of Aylmer obsessing over the birthmark, Georgiana becomes self-conscious and confronts him about the matter. She asks him if he thinks he could successfully remove the mark, and when he says that he could, she replies, “let the attempt be made at any risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life—while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust—life is a burthen which I would fling down with joy” (421).
Becoming consumed by his hatred of Georgiana's birthmark, Aylmer attempts to use his science to remove the flaw. Though Aylmer believes that he is an accomplished scientist, evidence from his workbooks shows that even his “most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed” (BM). But despite the evidence which shows that he is not as accomplished of a scientist as he says he is, he continued with the experiment. His obsession of fixing Georgiana’s complexion and ridding her of her birthmark pushes him to experiment on her despite the risks. Unfortunately, because Aylmer did not change or better himself after judging his wife, he continued with the risky procedure which resulted in ending her life. Aylmer was blinded by his obsession with creating the perfect wife to realize that he was actually insecure with his own ability in science. He so badly wanted to prove to the world that he was able to rid his wife of her blemish and reveal her true beauty. Because he was unable to use his judgements to better understand his own true nature, Aylmer destroyed his own chance for
Our society has many ways of manifesting its obsession with physical perfection. In our society people go to extreme lengths to achieve perfection. The 'Birthmark';, written more than a century ago, is an early version of our modern obsession with physical perfection.
Nathaniel Hawthorne did not do much explaining when it came to the characters involved in "The Birthmark". He did not portray the main characters: Aylmer, Georgiana, and Ambidab as human beings, but rather as symbols. While analyzing the story "The Birthmark", I have achieved some great insight of the author 's articulate writing style; especially, his style of making characters have symbolic meaning. In this story, Hawthorne uses his characters to symbolize specific things. In this ambiguous, short story, the three characters each symbolize Science, Beauty, and Nature. Each character represents an unusual force that has equally worked against each other.