Aylmer And Georgiana In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” is a short story detailing the relationship between the married couple Aylmer and Georgiana. Georgiana has a hand-shaped birthmark on her left cheek which Aylmer finds appalling on her otherwise perfect face. The couple eventually decides to remove the mark, with disastrous results (Hawthorne). Barbara Eckstein, author of Studies in Short Fiction, critically reviews “The Birthmark” in her article, “Hawthorne’s ‘The Birthmark’: Science and Romance as Belief.” Eckstein argues that Aylmer follows science and Georgiana follows romance as a belief system similar to religion. Each character follows their belief system, and in doing so, fulfills their character roles within the story. I concur with

Eckstein states, “Aylmer, however, does not want to cooperate by seeing his science as one study among many: his science must also be philosophy and religion.” (517) Throughout “The Birthmark,” Aylmer sees reality through a scientific and natural lens. As Georgiana and Aylmer’s time as newlyweds continues, Aylmer equates Georgiana birthmark as a sign of mortality and weakness. Aylmer says, “No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” (Hawthorne 2) Aylmer symbolizes the birthmark as a sign of mortality and imperfection, and as a scientist who wants to master nature, he is dedicated to removing it. To further back Eckstein’s argument, many scientists at the time Hawthorne wrote the short story also desired to gain mastery by discovering the natural world. In an article by Allen Kahn titled “American Science 1800-1850,” Kahn states, “Determinism was the philosophy of sophisticated scientists of the day. The French mathematician LaPlace maintained that if he knew the positions and forces on all the particles in the world, he could predict in principle all future happenings.” (Kahn 91) Just as LaPlace wanted to predict the future by mastering science, Aylmer wanted to create perfection in

When Aylmer first tells Georgiana that he finds her mark ugly, she is appalled and saddened. Eckstein states, “…she loves him because he is obsessed with his singular power of creation, which she imagines includes her—…” (515) Because Georgiana feels that she is his imperfect creation, she is devoted to fixing herself. Soon after she discovers the distress Aylmer feels over her mark, the narrator says, “Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject.” (Hawthorne 3) Instead of doing nothing about the hurt she was causing her husband, she decided to discuss ways to solve their problem, an act of love. Eckstein says, “Georgiana is a heroine like those described by Brownstein in Becoming A Heroine. Her success is measured by her ability to attract suitors and, at the height of her beauty, to marry one. But at the point she succeeds, her story is over.” (514) Once Georgiana learns the only way to make her husband happy is to remove the mark, she is willing to do so or die. In the end, her role as a believer in romance concludes when she becomes beautiful, so, therefore, she must