Theme Of Perfection In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

In The Birthmark, Hawthorne tells the story of a woman named Georgiana and her scientist husband Aylmer, who are both fixated on a birthmark similar to the look of a tiny human hand. Aylmer is disgusted by Georgiana’s birthmark, wanting to please her husband Georgiana is willing to do anything for him to look at her in a normal manner “Danger is nothing to me;for life which this hateful mark

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth Mark” shows readers the foolishness and selfishness of trying to create a perfect being and defying our creator. Nathaniel shows an example of this act by publishing this story of Aylmer and his non-perfect wife, who has a birth mark in the shape of a hand on her cheek. Aylmer is so disgusted with this mark that he soon begins to use science to take care of the problem. Throughout “The Birth Mark” Hawthorne performs different symbols that indicate Aylmer is just a human being and challenging God to make a perfect human will always lead to death.

All individuals are not born perfect. Every individual has their flaws that has a positive or negative impact to those around them and the society. All individuals have flaws that can or cannot hide from the rest of the world. Scholars of psychology argue that obsessions cause individuals to achieve perfection and can have a positive or negative aspect to an individuals’ life. Perfection is the conditions, state, or quality of being free as possible from all flaws or defects. These scholars’ arguments contribute to the story, “The Birth-Mark”, Nathanial Hawthorne expresses the common personal issue that individuals possess. The Birth-Mark was about a man named Aylmer and his obsession of science and the birth mark on his wife’s face. The birth

Intro: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fictional short story “The Birthmark” and The Twilight Zone’s darkly romantic episode “Eye of the Beholder” both use gothic elements and delve into the realm of science to explore concepts of beauty and perfection. Through their contrasting characterizations of the scientist and employments of irony and allusions, each work comes to its own conclusions about how to define and treat beauty.

Two tragedies, two stories of women who were in otherwise normal marriages. The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a short story about scientist named Aylmer who becomes obsessed with perfecting the beauty of his wife Georgiana (Nathaniel Hawthorne 113). Georgiana has a small birthmark on her cheek that resembles a small hand. Over time Aylmer’s negative reactions to the sight of the birthmark pushes Georgiana emotionally to give in and go through the dangerous process of it’s removal, which ultimately cost Georgiana her life. The story of an Hour by Kate Chopin is about a woman Louise who has a heart condition and is married to a man named Brently Mallard. She learns of her husband’s death in an accident and falsely finds a renewed joy for life as she is free from the burden of marriage. Tragically she goes to the front door as it is being opened with a key, to find Mr. Mallard still alive, causing her to die of heart

In “The Birthmark” Nathaniel Hawthorne gives us a story that is telling us on some level to accept your own, as well as other people's imperfections or it could destroy not only your relationship with them, but also your relationship with yourself. In this story Hawthorne uses symbolism to show us exactly how this kind of behavior can lead to not just ruining relationships, but in this case even death. In “The Birthmark” Hawthorne uses a wide variety of objects and people such as a withering flower, a birthmark, poison, Aylmer's dream and Georgiana's death, and even a character named Aminidab to symbolize that nobody is in fact perfect and we all must accept each others flaws in order to have good and healthy relationships.

The short story “The Birthmark” was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1834. The story follows a brilliant, yet insane scientist named Aylmer. He creates so many brilliant inventions in hoping to improve his life; his wife is just as perfect, despite a small hand shaped birthmark on her cheek. While Georgiana is considered gorgeous and beautiful by hundreds of men, only Aylmer sees the fault in the birthmark and deems it as a flaw that only he can fix with science. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses symbolism and figurative language to help convey the meaning of the short story to readers.

Georgiana’s birthmark represents her grasp on humanity as shown in its shape as a hand. The hand symbolizes humanity’s role in nature and the continuous struggle between nature and science. Georgiana is someone who Aylmer sees as created “nearly perfect from the hand of Nature” (Hawthorne 1). Her birthmark is an imprint left by nature and is representative of humanity’s ties to it. Altering nature isn’t something that humans should be able to do because it is more powerful than any creation made by man. Aylmer believes that he can correct “what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work!” (4). Aylmer, who stands as a symbol for science, obsessively seeks to remove Georgiana’s birthmark and make her ideal. When mankind attempts to change nature in the pursuit of perfection, it never ends well as seen in Aylmer’s attempts at

In the story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, he uses several techniques to help build his story. Hawthorne tells a story of a man of science whose name was Aylmer. He married a beautiful women named Georgiana, although she was quite beautiful she had a birthmark on her face which, in Aylmer’s eyes was an imperfection. Aylmer tries to perfect Georgiana, but in the end Aylmer’s attempts to change Georgiana causes him to lose her. Aylmer does not accept the idea of imperfections in people. Aylmer believed that if people really had the desire to be perfect they would strive for it, but they don’t and in result Aylmer cannot accept the reality that people are imperfect. Hawthorne uses a number of techniques such as, setting, foreshadowing, imagery, tone, etc. With each of these different techniques he uses them to contribute to the story to create the theme or idea of the

In the short story “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne writes about a scientist, his wife, and the unhealthy relationship they share. The story follows Aylmer, a scientist, who is determined to remove his wife Georgiana’s birthmark. One aspect of their unhealthy relationship is Georgiana’s sole dependance on Aylmer. Furthermore, Aylmer does not view Georgiana as his equal. Not only this, but Aylmer frequently belittles her, continuously pointing out her flaws, which drives her to do something dangerous. Georgiana’s dependance on Aylmer, the inequality of the relationship and Aylmer’s disregard for her feelings, are the main ingredients of Aylmer and Georgiana’s unhealthy relationship.

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birthmark”, is an exemplary example of Dark Romanticism in early American literature. An abundance of romantic characteristics such as supernatural elements, intuition over reasoning, and the tendency to focus on the tragedy of the story are found throughout the Dark Romantic piece.

In “The Birthmark”, Aylmer is bothered in seeing a birthmark on his wife Georgiana’s cheek. I believe that Aylmer was truly evil in the way he manipulated Georgiana in thinking he truly cared about her. Aylmer’s ideas of perfection were the most dangerous thing about him and even led him to kill.

It describes him as “Proficient in every branch of natural philosophy”, (Hawthorne, 365) to the extent that he even discovered an elixir that he could determine if a man would drop dead instantly or linger out years after only of a breath of this substance. We see a great irony in how intelligent Aylmer is, and yet how many scientific mistakes he makes. When he uses the elixir of life upon the flower, it grows beautifully but also self-combusts. He then tells Georgiana he will need to use a much stronger substance on her, in order to fix her birthmark. The flower very obviously foreshadows Georgiana’s death, and the result proves that Aylmer’s science can produce extremely unpredictable results. Yet, Aylmer fails to recognise that he must proceed with caution, such an irony considering his large bank of

A character having an ability to be an influence of fatality is a dangerously powerful trait to have. The victim’s life is placed into the hands of the influencer. This power of fatality can be seen within Robert Frost’s poem, “Out, Out,” when a personified buzz saw cuts the hand off the boy using it. This injury causes him to die. This power of fatality can also be seen in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birthmark,” a scientist, named Aylmer creates a risky and unreliable potion that was expected to remove his wife’s birthmark but, it ultimately kills her. The saw and Aylmer’s power can be defined as the difference between life and death, in other words fate deciding. With this power also comes intimidation because being the cause

In the short stories “The Birthmark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the value of science over human life is established. Nathaniel Hawthorne explores the characterization of beauty, emotion over love, versus intellect over science, and an exploration of creator over creation. He presents an idea about scientific research, especially regarding feminine beauty. These tales are told with a motive to give the audience a sympathetic understanding of women’s beauty; which is something precious and already the model of nature’s perfection.