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Symbolism In Nathaniel Hawthorne's In The Birth-Mark

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The Romantic period was a very influential time for the arts, literature, and intellectual thinking in Europe. During this time, there was especially many talented writers who wrote romantic short stories. One of the most famous Romantic writers of the time was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist who specialized in dark romantic writing such as the “Birth-Mark.” In the “Birth-Mark,” Hawthorne uses symbolism to portray the sinfulness and imperfections of humans. Hawthorne’s view of man is that humans are not perfect and all-knowing, while humans have our own opinion and consider ourselves to be nonpareil because of our dominance and intellectuality. Humans have many qualities that deem them to be the superior organism. Compared to other creatures such as the dog, monkey, or any other animal, humans have the quality of being intellectual because of our rational soul. This reasoning portion within each of us is what discerns what is real and not apparent. Besides the rational psyche, there are two other kinds of souls appetitive and sensible. Appetitive is the ability to want to eat or desire hunger; sensible is the capability to …show more content…

This concept of imperfection is shown in the story when Aylmer experiments and tries to remove Georgianna’s birthmark repeatedly but fails. This conclusive evidence proves that the utopian human can never exist, which is the moral of the story. In the story, Hawthorne does not view humans faultless because when Aylmer removes the birthmark on Georgianna, she becomes flawless and ends up dying. The perfection that humans believe they have is just the imagination of their minds. It is a basic theoretical concept but not an attribute of the metaphysical world. Hawthorne portrays this concept though a character named Aylmer, a young scientist, who believes that he can defile the makings of

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Hawthorne emphasizes on Aylmer’s character shift in the poem to demonstrate his views on obsession. Individuals foolishness to achieve perfection has led to critical decisions in society. Hawthorne explained Aylmer’s characteristics by describing him as a man of science (447). Aylmer’s passion for science help to understand the obsession that he has and Hawthorne showed how much Aylmer

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As the story progresses the audience can relate and sympathize with Georgiana as she is essentially the victim of her husband’s judgement and shock of what he claims to the birthmark to act as an ailment of her beauty. Aylmer goes on to calling her near perfection were it not for the birthmark, however as many would agree that in real life there is no such thing as perfection. Georgiana progressively begins to see her husband change and show his true nature. He becomes angry with her and does not trust her, leading to Georgiana essentially losing

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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.

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This overriding confidence makes him blind to his past failures and logical sense. Georgiana pointes out the faults Aylmer’s past experiments by saying, “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.” (Hawthorne, 217). This shows that Aylmer always reached for the unreliable and impossible overcomes when experimenting. This raises concern when Aylmer focuses on using his own wife as an experiment rather than the love of his life.

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Equally Aylmer and Dr. Rappiccini, both characters in Hawthorne’s works causes destruction of human life with selfish aims to perfect the woman of their choice. In the case of Aylmer’s love interest in science, just as with the case of Beatrice’s father, blinds him to the true beauty and humanity of the woman before him. Aylmer views Georgiana’s birthmark as a symbol of imperfection and tries to remove it. At the end of the story, Georgiana say, "My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer.

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