Obsession in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

Scientific research concerning living organisims is usually beneficial. Most

medical practices are beneficial; they are done to cure people from illness and to save

people's lives. The only time when science borders on going too far is when it is used to

alter people or animals -- for instance changing the genes of a fly to give it eyes on its legs.

Making mutants like that violates the sanctity of life, and although it is condonable for

research with flies, to do something similar to humans would be beyond comprehension.

It is clear that Hawthorne does not look favorably upon manipulating humans with

science. He is especially wary about using science to try to make things worse; "Do not

repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer.

... I am dying!" says Chillingworth wife after she is "cured" of her birthmark, a large brown

mole on the upper left side of her right arm.

Chillingworth feels that this experiment is justified because his wife is nowhere near

perfect, withstanding the birthmark. "...upon another arm perhaps it might, but ... you came

so hideous 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." If she hadn't been so close to detestment, he would not have minded the

birthmark, but because she is otherwise beastly, the birthmark stands out. Significant is the

use of the phrase "earthly imperfection", which hints at Hawthorne's theme. By removing

Georgiana's "earthly imperfection", Chillingworth is playing God. It is hard to say whether

it was justified in my opinion, even if the experiment had succeeded. If I take the story

literally, and put myself in one of their positions, it might be. But I don't think that this is

what Hawthorne wants us to be concerned with; he wants to show us why it is wrong to try

to change nature with science.

Hawthorne's theme of tampering with nature can easily be applied to society.