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Symbolism In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

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Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark, is a short story that was written March 1843. Nathaniel Hawthorne is best known for his dreary symbolic writing in American Literature. The Birthmark is a book about a man Aylmer obsessed with his wife’s tiny imperfection of cheek none other than her birthmark. Like many other short stories and novels by Nathaniel Hawthorne. “The Birthmark" is an allegory and much of the allegorical meaning is composed through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s use of symbolism. He can not stop himself from being drawn to perfection. Georgiana finds out that her birthmark shocks her husband and he is bothered by it. Georgiana finally realizes it when Alymar says “Georgiana . . . has it ever occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?” After talking about her it several times with Aylmer, Georgiana decides to have it removed by him. He gets so caught up in wanting that so called perfection he ends up killing her and the birthmark.
The short story The Birthmark was written more than century ago but still manages to possess our modern day obsession with physical perfection. In trying to perfect Georgiana, Aylmer is messing with God’s creation. The …show more content…

It gives a sense of ambiguity. The birthmark in this story directly symbolizes the need to be perfect in society’s eyes. Hawthorn develops in the story is the presentation of the image of Aylmer. He is a man interpreted as someone who is passionate to his wife and passionate to science. It leads us to think that the reason Aylmer create the elixir is because he wants to prove something what science was capable of. One area which ambiguity plays in the story is the interpretation of the characters in the story. Georgiana, for example can be viewed as someone who was confident and self-assured with her birthmark but later on became miserable with it after she knew that her husband disliked

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