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Perfection In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

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Perfection in a world of imperfection.
“The Birthmark” is a story of confusing sorrow about a man and a woman whose differences numerous problems for the two. Aylmer a renowned scientist of his time has taken it upon himself to marry a woman of great perfection and beauty. As Aylmer admires his wife, he notices a peculiar “birthmark” (306) upon his wife’s cheek in the shape of a “tiny hand” (305). Thus making the most beautiful woman flawed and imperfect. For a man that strives such great perfection it has become his mission to convince his wife of removing it and finding a way to do so. To Aylmer the hand is “crimson” (304), a reminder of sin and immortality increasing his obsession with removing it. This obsession with perfecting what’s imperfect strays him from seeing the good in his wife, causing him to kill her in the end. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s …show more content…

One of the symbols eminently in the story is that of the “tiny hand” (305) imprinted on Georgianna’s face. When it comes to the birthmark on her face there is an array of emotions. Many men find this attractive as if her beauty doesn’t already draw them in, the “tiny hand” (305) intrigues them even more. Nathaniel Hawthorne states that “many a desperate swan would have risked their lives for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand” (305) showing us the amount of infatuation with it. It is here that we understand Aylmer’s association of the hand with “sin” (305) as it causes most men to behave erratically. Just like Eve enticed Adam to eat the forbidden fruit off of the tree. Many woman refer to it as the “bloody hand” (305)

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In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s,”The Birthmark,” Alymer, the scientist, knew all along that his science would kill his wife because he himself is imperfect. Sometimes, scientists become so involved in their work that they forget about others. Alymer’s forgetting about his wife and their future was what happened when he decided that his science was more important to him than she was. His obsession with her looks, and his obsession with performing experimental surgery caused him to lose the most important person in his life. First, Alymer knew from the beginning that he was not a good scientist.

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"No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfectly from the hand of Nature, that this slightest defect, which we hesitate to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection." Alymer sees this mark as something ruining an almost perfect canvas. Knowing her husband views this mark, which she believes is a charm her whole life, as a defect really hurts her self-esteem. Now something she once viewed as a charm she now is almost as disgusted by it as Alymer is. She cannot bear to look at herself in the mirror or to see her real beauty.

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Georgiana can be viewed as the protagonist of the story. Georgiana in the story is depicted as this beautiful woman who her husband Aylmer only dislikes one of her qualities/features which is her birthmark. The birthmark is described to represent a red hand on her cheek. Initially when Aylmer asks her if she has ever thought about getting her birthmark removed she thinks of it as a joke and begins to blush. It is not until that she realizes that he was in fact serious that she becomes somewhat distraught with him for rejecting her as she is.

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Therefore, Aylmer want to use his scientific knowledge to create that perfect physical image. Aylmer’s worries towards his wife’s beauty was not onlyto save her from being nearly so “perfect” but to use her. He wanted to use her in the way to prove he was a better man than nature. She was imperfect in the way that she had a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face located on the left cheek as it was described in the book. His wife did not only have a flaw he also thought it was a defect on her soul.

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The story offers many perceptions on the way human beings act or jumble their lives in mission of finding out things that they cannot understand. In the story, the birthmark, as presented by Georgiana, shows the natural prettiness that people are born with. Natural beauty may cover some imperfections as associated to ideal beauty that is formed by science or art. The red mark on the face of Georgiana is a case of some of the things that human kind may not feel content about. Consequently, they end up relating other approaches that may not be suitable to change things to the way they want them.

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But over time her one flaw the birthmark drives him to insanity which consumes him. Aylmer reassured Georgiana that he can rid her of this fatal flaw place by nature; “I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will by my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work” (Hawthorne, 401)! He feels compelled to remove the birthmark from her wife’s cheek and only then will she be all

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He posses a belief in "man 's ultimate control over nature", and thinks there is nothing man can 't master or achieve. His obsession with his wife 's small imperfect birth mark, which resembles a hand, begins shortly after they become married. Aylmer is fixated with his wife Georgiana 's perfection; he believes that in order for him to experience perfect love, he must have a perfect woman to love. His obsession gradually becomes Georgiana 's obsession at which point she becomes so distraught that she tells Aylmer "Remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life".

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Georgiana is under his control as well as Aylmer is attempting to control and manipulate nature. Georgiana began to speculate that she had already been subjected to certain physical influences, either through the fragrant air or through her food, as these questions had such a particular drift. Aylmer manipulates Georgiana without his wife's knowledge using outside influences to eventually free them from the crimson hand that has plagued their lives. Hawthorne plays with the modern problem of men's need to control women. Aylmer is able to control his wife by riding her away from the birthmark.

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“His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach.” Throughout, Nathaniel Hawthorne makes of the birthmark upon Georgianna’s face save but two things—a luminous treasure, and a dreadful stain. As a proponent of science, Georgianna’s husband Aylmer is obsessed with experimentation, ultimately finding it difficult to be satisfied with what he has accomplished as he pushes for success and perfection. As an outwardly negligible sentence inserted by Hawthorne, it nonetheless alludes to numerous aspects of the story.

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691 Words | 3 Pages

Through reading this short story we learn that Aylmer thinks the birth mark on poor Georgiana cheek is a flaw of her perfect existence. Finding out how much it means to Aylmer to remove the mark it tells us about how Georgiana feels unloved and in order to make her husband love her without feeling discussed she would have to let him try to remove the birthmark no matter what happens to

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779 Words | 4 Pages

The overall theme of this short story was about how obsessed Aylmer became about taking Georgiana’s birthmark off. And he felt she was imperfect with her birthmark which was in the shape of a hand on the side of her face. In “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne shows how the destructive and deadly effects of emotional abuse can really affect someone. Summary

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Aylmer is challenged with this problem when the birthmark on his wife’s cheek starts to drive him utterly mad. Despite the fact that all of his experiments have failed, he still believes he will be able to play out the role of God and transform Georgiana’s condition into something of perfection, thus displaying the dispute with law, or God’s power. The “Moral Machine” activity demonstrates the same trial by testing one’s values with the laws proposed by the game. In total, both portray the difficulty of freedom of choice along with the underlying theme: perfection cannot be achieved on

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His love for science has become his religion and has gone beyond the logic of rationale. In his attempt to make the physical defect spiritual he considers himself more of a god and fails to recognize that spirit and matter cannot be distinct (Hawthorne). His success in removing the birthmark equals that of reigning over God’s power. Aylmer’s obsession to find perfection at the moment robbed him of a lifetime of happiness. Georgiana’s death was a clear indication that mortality runs earth.

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655 Words | 3 Pages

As a reader you begin to see the birthmark as something that should be cherished and, instead, see the main character’’s lack of love as a disgrace and a “darkness.” What’s even darker, is that Aylmer is able to convince Georgiana, herself, that the birthmark must be gone. The further the reader gets in the story, the more tortured Georgiana seems, until her husband, the person who is supposed to love her most, murders her, to rid her of imperfection. The fact the Aylmer deems Georgiana’s beauty more important than her life and sticks to this belief so strongly is a perfect demonstration of inner-darkness and corruption among men. Through Aylmer, Hawthorne shines a light on the darkest

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“The Birthmark” describes a scientist’s struggle to control what cannot be controlled as well as his struggle to achieve the impossibility of human perfection. The scientist, Aylmer, is an intellect dominated character who attempts to understand everything. In doing so he becomes imbalanced, which results in the death of his wife, who represents heart. Her death indicates the importance

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