What seems to be a simple tale of human error at first, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark”, implies a much deeper and darker note upon closer inspection. A relatively short story, it details an event in the lives of Aylmer and Georgiana, a recent wedded couple. Georgiana possesses a birthmark on her cheek that repulses Aylmer more and more as time goes on. When he confronts her about it, she voices that it is a part of her charm, but Aylmer begins to react so violently around it that Georgiana finally agrees to give him a chance to remove it. He spends a few days in the laboratory with her and does remove the birthmark, but also removes her soul from the earth, she dies when the birthmark is gone. This story is wrought with details that support its label as a “dark romantic tale”. To see the story in the correct light, one has to understand what dark romanticism is. Dark romantic writers believed that humans are prone to sin. The human race is not always blessed with divinity and wisdom. Second, they represented evil in their stories with supernatural characters; ghost...
In the short story, “The Birthmark” Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the characters, foreshadowing, symbolism, and other rhetorical devices to alert people of the consequences of man having the power to control and alter nature. Additionally, through his skillful usage of diction, Hawthorne warns of the effects of seeking perfection through science. In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer, a man devoted entirely to science, marries Georgiana, a beautiful young woman with a single imperfection. Georgiana’s imperfection bears the resemblance of a tiny crimson hand and is visible on her left cheek. The birthmark becomes the object of Aylmer’s obsession and he resolves to use his scientific prowess to correct “what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work.” He succeeds in removing the birthmark; however, he unfortunately causes his wife’s death in the process. Through “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne suggests that nothing paradisiacal can exist on this earth, and that being imperfect is just part of being human.
Since the beginning of time, people have lived by the expression, or at least heard
During this puritan time in the 1600s. Nathaniel Hawthorne who is an anti-transcendentalist speaks about sin. But not just any sin, secret sin in this novel “The Scarlet Letter.” Hawthorne expresses many themes and symbols in many strange and mysterious ways. Hawthorne is a very dark and devious man. The scarlet letter A that is embroidered on Hester’s bosom symbolizes adultery. Adultery is the sin that she has committed. Hester had a whole husband and made a baby with a man that wasn’t the husband. In his novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the symbolism of Hester’s Cabin, Leeches, and Dimmesdale to contribute to the overall theme of Good Vs. Evil.
The words “beautiful” and “perfect” are both vague yet relative concepts as they are defined from person to person. In Hawthorne’s “The Birth Mark,” imperfections perceived by one are also seen as defining in beauty by another. Perfection, as sought by Aylmer, became an obsession which in the end required Georgiana to undergo a process of transmutation to become perfect and therefore a more desirable human being in Aylmer’s eyes. The concept of “bodily perfection” remains the same today as it was in Hawthorne’s time: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but it is who the beholder is that is of greatest importance when determining the value of the opinion being shared. For Georgiana, Aylmer’s happiness, or lack thereof, defined the way in
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
Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist and short story writer born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1804. Some of his most popular short stories include “The Birthmark,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter,” and “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.” “The Birthmark,” which was published in March of 1843, is a story about a beautiful girl named Georgiana who has a red birthmark on her cheek. She is described as flawless throughout the community, but the hand-shaped birthmark smears a sense of imperfection onto her otherwise perfect body. Throughout the story, her husband, Aylmer, attempts to remove the birthmark and control nature in the process. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is centered around a young student named Giovanni who arrives in Padua to study medicine. He soon
medical practices are beneficial; they are done to cure people from illness and to save
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, The Birthmark, he uses unperfected beauty to confirm that if God’s creations are meddled with the product is harmful. A scientist, Alymer is married to a beautiful women named Georgiana whose only flaw is a birthmark on her left cheek.
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...
It is hard to say that one is human and perfect at the same time. Human beings are not capable of achieving perfection; if that would be so, humans would stop being humans. By nature the human race is full of flaws, some appearing as early as in the womb. From defects in the body, to defects in the mind, to the mistakes that one makes in quotidian life, it is impossible to deny that human imperfection exists. To try to manipulate humans into perfection is not only impossible, but it takes away the very essence of being a human being. The short story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorn, illustrates this teaching through the character of Aylmer, an ambitious and devoted scientist who is appalled by his wife Georgiana’s birthmark, believing it to be a perceivable sign of her human flaws and eagerly waits to remove it from her cheek. This story raises riveting questions such as, what is humanity all about, can human beings ever achieve perfection through science, is Hawthorn attacking science or a wider issue, and more significantly, should science take the place of God. Through the use of symbolism in “The Birthmark”, Hawthorn indirectly implies that imperfection is an essential part of being human and that science should not interfere; thus he is hinting his personal views toward science and its limitations over nature.
Shown by the dark, and emotional stories told in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” and Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Tell-Tale Heart,” similar writing styles become apparent. Edgar Allan Poe is known for his dark stories that are borderline psychopathic, whereas Hawthorne’s stories provide a sense of hopelessness, and are considered as depressing tales. Both writers have very vivid imaginations that translate into the stories they write. These tales are only two examples of extraordinary pieces of American Gothic Literature that can be compared between the two authors. “The Birthmark” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” are Hawthorne and Poe’s way of telling two different stories that share a common
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
In today’s society, it seems that we cannot turn the television on or look in a
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.