The Hand 'In Hawthorne's The Birthmark'

From the late 18th century to the mid-19th century America began to experience Romanticism; a period where emotions, spiritual understanding, and a close relationship with nature were emphasized. Romanticism is clearly the style used in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” not to mention it is chalked full of symbolism in light of one man’s obsession with nature, science, perfection, and Georgiana. The birthmark resembling a “tiny crimson hand” imprinted on Georgiana’s cheek is clearly a form of symbolism used to represent many concepts in this great literary piece. Many may interpret “the hand” to symbolize such things as mortality, imperfection, humanity, the hand of nature, the hand of God, or even a liability of sin. In “The Birthmark” Hawthorne

Hawthorne himself made the references in many ways that would conclude this theory. The evidence would be reflected in Hawthorne’s quotes including “In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death,” his quote “was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain,” along with his quote “This mark becomes to him “the spectral Hand that wrote mortality, where he would fain have worshipped,” and his quote “Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but never on yours. 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.” show evidence of the multiple ways in which the symbolization of the hand could be interpreted. Hawthorne’s romanticism styled short story “The Birthmark” is chalked full of emotion as one scientist battles his obsession with all things science, nature, perfection and love in an epic tale of the loss suffered at the hand of a loved one in his resound efforts to turn his wife’s minor imperfection into not only a superficial perfection but also a great scientific