Beauty is defined as qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses. The short story “The Birthmark” uses this term all in its physical form. A hand, a birthmark upon a face of God like perfection leads to the fate of a young woman’s demise. The story’s main symbol is the conflict of the story, Georgiana’s birthmark. It is shown as a force of nature and goes on as a significant role in other aspects of the story.Along with its symbolic meaning, Georgiana's birthmark also represents something in the context that the short story was written in, the 1840’s. Going into the comparison of the historical representation, early women's rights during the 19th century. First off, the story of “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne was …show more content…
written about the couple of Aylmer, a brilliant scientist and philosopher, and Georgiana, a beautifully perfect woman. With one thing compromising their marriage, a small hand-like birthmark upon Georgiana’s cheek. Throughout the story, Aylmer composes an idea to rid her beauty of this one flaw which does cause Georgiana to become the idea of perfection but for the price of her life. In the story, Aylmer sees himself as a God-like figure as he compares himself to the story of Pygmalion. Stated in the dialogue of Aylmer, “Even Pygmalion, when sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be.”. In the myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor falls in love with his creation of the perfect woman which comes to life by the Goddess of Venus answering his prayers. With that said, Aylmer feels that he is doing something more out of admiration compared to Pygmalion by removing this birthmark from his wife’s face. Both the myth and this short story show the context of how women are supposed to be portrayed in this aspect of complete beauty. This birthmark creates an obsession for the scientist which he clearly shows disgust based on the descriptions. Not only does the husband show a distaste for this flaw, but so does the woman who has possessed it from birth. It is described as a hateful mark, dreadful hand, imperfection, a defect, a crimson stain, odious hand, stain of rainbow, and most of all fatal. Various amount of times, the repetition of the remark fatal comes up in the story. This brings up the fact of foreshadowing. Not only the birthmark being described as fatal but also a dream that Aylmer has about the experiment shows the foreshadowing of Georgiana’s passing. In the dream Aylmer remembers it as stated, “the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart…”. Her husband wanted that birthmark gone so badly that he cut down all the way to her heart. Eventually, even though he did not even use a knife for the removal, it shows how far he was willing to risk her life for her beauty. Symbolically, it could be seen that the removal of the birthmark represents man destroying nature. Every day there are new things being built at the price of tearing down God’s creation. Georgiana’s reaction to the removal goes as follows, “If there be the remotest possibility of it… let the attempt be made at whatever the risk”. The fact that Georgiana is agreeing with the removal shows the ability that nature can not do anything about its own demise. She has lived with this birthmark her whole life up to now in the story where her husband convinces her to expel it. Same as nature has to go along with what man has to do in order to accomplish constructing roads and buildings. Both the story and man's destruction of nature end in death. Which shows to take away God’s creation destroys or kills it as well. The most important symbol is the birthmark which has a connection not only symbolically but also to the time period it was written in. Nathaniel Hawthorn wrote the short story in 1843. During this time period from around the 1820’s to the 1840’s, women rights were a big issue. When reading “The Birthmark”, it can be seen that the symbol of the hand-like mark and everything around can represent some of the issues that women were having during this time. To start off with, women’s individualism. Around that time period, women were basically completely dependent on a man whether or not it was her father or husband. In the short story, Aylmer wants to take Georgiana’s birthmark away which is her individualism. It is stated in an article about women’s right, “The ideal woman was submissive; her job was to be a meek, obedient, loving wife who was totally subservient to the men around her”(Donnaway). Women weren’t allowed to be on their own, living their own lives. Everything they did was up to the decision of the men in their lives. Which is why the birthmark needed to go, Georgiana had something that showed her individualism and it was appalling for her to have. If women were supposed to want their rights so bad, how come she didn’t fight her birthmark to stay, well that goes to show how natural it was for women not to have rights. In the short story it states, “If there be the remotest possibility of it… let the attempt be made whatever risk”(Hawthorn). At first in the story, Georgiana did not even think about removing it but when her husband brings up his distaste for it, she would risk her own life to please her husband. Normal for this time period was that economy and society dictated that women gave their lives to the men in their life, they were not even recognized as an individual. Another normal aspect during that time period was that women were to obey the men. Rules were set for women during the early 19th century.
They were house slaves, they gave whatever money they earned to their husbands or fathers, they had to respect their men in whatever aspect. In comparison, Georgiana had to remove this birthmark for her husband to love her and he gets mad at her when she goes prying through his laboratory. In an article it states, ”Men controlled everything including his wife’s discipline and represented the family in public life”(Colonization to 1820’s). Men were in charge of every aspect of a woman's life. Georgiana needed to remove the mark because her husband pointed it out. Also in “The Birthmark”, when Georgiana was asked to wait she went through his things and spied on him making the potion for her removal. When Aylmer sees Georgiana watching him it states, “beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left prints of his fingers”(Hawthorn). He was angry that she did not obey him, then argues that she does not trust him but is more of the fact that Georgiana is scared. Scared to lose her husband, to lose her individualism, to lose her life. Something that was not a normal nor wanted in that time period were women trying to gain their …show more content…
rights. Women’s Rights Movements, even though in their early days, were something hopeful for a lot of women.
Even though it was thought of as the way life is, many women fought for what they deserved, equality and individualism. The character that seems to represent this is Aminadab. He laughs at the fact of the removal of the birthmark and he says “If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark”. The assistant, under Aylmer, says opinion to maybe convince his superior even though it is not his place to do so. He represents all the women trying to show America that women deserve to be individual. With that said, during the early 19th century these women movements did have a lot of change happening which shows why Aminadab helped Aylmer with his experiment. Even though the assistant was against he had to go along, as did the women in this time period who fought their hardest to push towards women equality. The contextual history provided all have different aspects that draw towards how the short story of “The Birthmark” can be represented as the early development and society around women’s rights in the 19th century. Which brings us to the
conclusion. “The Birthmark” is an amazing short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorn. A story of a God-like woman with a flaw shows the symbolism of beauty and the destruction of nature. Through research, it was seen how this short story represents the early development of the women’s rights movement. Georgiana’s birthmark is a force of nature that not only shows a symbolic meaning but also a historic one.
Aylmer’s desire to make his wife perfect is doomed to failure because perfection, Hawthorne suggests, is the exclusive province of heaven that cannot be found on earth. Because she becomes an ideal being, completely unmarried, Georgiana is no longer able to exist in this world. The birthmark has references to life, death, nature, beauty, insecurities and disgust.
What seems to be a simple tale of human error at first, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark”, implies a much deeper and darker note upon closer inspection. A relatively short story, it details an event in the lives of Aylmer and Georgiana, a recent wedded couple. Georgiana possesses a birthmark on her cheek that repulses Aylmer more and more as time goes on. When he confronts her about it, she voices that it is a part of her charm, but Aylmer begins to react so violently around it that Georgiana finally agrees to give him a chance to remove it. He spends a few days in the laboratory with her and does remove the birthmark, but also removes her soul from the earth, she dies when the birthmark is gone. This story is wrought with details that support its label as a “dark romantic tale”. To see the story in the correct light, one has to understand what dark romanticism is. Dark romantic writers believed that humans are prone to sin. The human race is not always blessed with divinity and wisdom. Second, they represented evil in their stories with supernatural characters; ghost...
“The Birth Mark” is a story of an elusive search for perfection when an alchemist named Aylmer who is committed to his work, and is married to a beautiful woman named Georgiana, attempts to remove his wife’s birthmark. Aylmer brings up the topic of her birthmark soon after their marriage and says that she would be perfect if it were removed. This statement completely destroys Georgiana’s self-image, and now believes that she is ugly since her husband believes the same. Georgiana is so devoted to her husband that she views herself utterly through his vision of
Alymer is an older scientist who marries a beautiful woman much younger then himself. Even though Alymer finds his young bride beautiful, he still says that she is “marked.” Upon Georgiana’s left cheek is a birthmark. The birthmark is small, red, and in the shape of a hand. Alymer believes that this mark takes away from her beauty; even though many other people, men and women alike, thought it to be charming; and those who did not, just “wished it away.”
There are numerous instances of ambiguity in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”; this essay hopes to explore critics’ comments on that problem within the tale, as well as to analyze it from this reader’s standpoint.
medical practices are beneficial; they are done to cure people from illness and to save
Uttering heartless words to a partner about their flaws is a reflection of one’s insecurity in the relationship. The short story “The Birthmark” gives readers insight into Aylmer, a questionable scientist who fails at experiments, and his wife Georgiana, an obedient wife who fulfills her husband’s commands. Aylmer is insecure and as a result denigrates Georgiana about her birthmark to purposefully make her despise the mark. Georgiana never thought of her birthmark as a flaw because men were enchanted by her fairy-like miniature hand with a shade of crimson. However, Georgiana being the good wife that she is, agrees to become her husband’s experiment to get the birthmark removed in order to make Aylmer happy. In this story it is evident that
There is a thin line between love and hate. Love is having a strong affection for another person, place, or thing and sometimes, it makes people do crazy things. Whether it is a woman chopping off hair due to a bad breakup or placing permanent tattoos on the body for commitment, one will go to major extremities to satisfy their passion for love. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story, “The Birthmark,¨ a psychotic scientist strives for perfection not only leading to the death of his beautiful wife, but overall attempting to have power and control over nature. Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes symbolism and foreshadowing to display the thematic complexities of mortality and human imperfection that the birthmark personifies psychologically and symbolically in the
In today’s society, it seems that we cannot turn the television on or look in a
...ection. By removing the birthmark from Georgiana’s face, Aylmer has taken away her humanity thus leading Georgiana to her death. Georgiana cannot live anymore because she is no longer a human being. Therefore claiming that science has its limits over nature and if those limits are crossed the consequences could be fatal.
n Handmaid’s tale novel we can discuss about women’s role. The key to the whole program is using other women to train and control them. It is hard to go against your own kind, when Son’s of Jacob took over, they knew that if they use male, it would not be workable because women could easily seduce the males to get their own way. "Something could be exchanged... We still had our bodies."(p. 4). By using other women as known as the Aunts, they could tell the women that they understood and knew what it was like, and that all this was for their own good, to keep them safe and make their world a better place. Aunts usually were very strict; they could use force to Handmaids. According to Offred “they had eclectic cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts”. (p.4). In addition, there are many of these training facilities such as Red centers, where the women trains by Aunts to be handmaidens. In other words, to be thought to bear children for wives who were no longer capable of childbirth. Older
The Birthmark and Symbolism Cloudy headed and conflicted describes Georgina, one of the main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.” In this eerie short story Georgina, who is seemingly perfect, is convinced by her husband, Aylmer, who is a scientist obsessed with perfection, that the small birthmark on her face is her only source of imperfection. While others have told her that this birthmark is a sign of magical endowments, Aylmer is disgusted by the sight of the birthmark, referring to it as a defect (Hawthorne 304-5). Georgina is taken aback by this comment and resents her husband for it. As the story progresses, Aylmer convinces Georgina to allow him to try and rid her of the mark.
The story’s tone is one of romantic controversy, a dilemma at a high level of existence. The scientist’s love for his craft competes very intensively with his newfound love for his wife. It is also very psychological, strictly dealing with the raw mind of its subjects as if the ominous narrator told the story from inside their mind, rather than observe it from the outside. He describes the processes that one may take to reach a certain degree of knowledge and to find the elixir of life, which is described in this story as the ultimate goal of the scientific community. Also, the narrator is very opinionated about events in the story.
Analysis of The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Although “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne was written in the mid-1800s, its themes and ideas are still a part of society today. The 19th century was a time of change, just like this, the millennium, was a time of great change. Hawthorne’s ideas about science, beauty, and life still play a major part in our lives, despite many improvements.
The time setting of the short story “The Birth-Mark” was the eighteenth century, a quite difficult era for the lives of women. In a journal published by Helga Madland, it was mentioned “Since the Graeco-Roman period, women had been perceived as inferior to males in the social hierarchy;..”(pg167). The low status of women in the society has been a big issue in the eighteenth century as reflected in the story “The Birth-Mark” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In this story, the unevenly distributed power between male and female eventually result in tragedy of women. “The Birth-Mark” by Hawthorne clearly proves that masculine power always dominates.