The Birthmark By Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Nobody is perfect and no one ever will be. This theme shows up often in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, The Birthmark. In this story, a scientist named Aylmer becomes obsessed with removing a hand-shaped birthmark from his wife’s, Georgiana, visage. After a series of tests, he is successful, but Georgiana becomes perfect and can no longer stay in the mortal world, so she dies. The Birthmark demonstrates how foolish it is to strive for perfection and this is revealed throughout the story using narration.
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a dark romantic author, meaning that he believed that humans are imperfect beings, which contradicted the transcendentalist belief that people are inherently good. This belief is demonstrated throughout the short story.

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