with a mortal frame” (Hawthorne 354). By tracing the tipping scales of perfection vs. dissatisfaction, readers of “The Birthmark” witness the slow demise of Georgiana and Aylmer, and gain important insight into human nature.
A telling moment about humanity’s dissatisfaction comes when Georgiana reads the volume written by Aylmer. Despite the fact that the book was “rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, [it] was yet as melancholy a record as ever a hand had penned” (Hawthorne 350). The aims set for himself by the scientist cannot be achieved. It is as though he sets out to achieve the unachievable because of an unconscious addiction to dissatisfaction. Before the conclusion of the novel, he has nearly achieved all that he has set out to; however, when he seeks to rid a mortal of her mortality, or at least of the distinctive mark upon her frame that represents her mortality, he fails. It ultimately matters very little whether or not he succeeds or fails because he will not be satisfied no matter what.
Georgiana has the wisdom and foresight to realize that she can never satisfy Aylmer, which perhaps contributes to her willingness to undergo the experiment. In a soliloquy not spoken aloud to Aylmer, she confesses that she longs to be all that he seeks in a woman but that she can never succeed because his spirit is “ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before.” (Hawthorne 344). Most interesting is Georgiana’s esteem for Aylmer when she realizes that his idealism will never correlate to reality. He believes that people’s spiritual nature is thwarted by the earthly part of us, rather than enabled by it. Based on his fate and the fate of his...
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...rch has written great adventures into our journey, it may spell our doom as well. While this lesson is powerful in itself, there is another more powerful and more deeply embedded in the story’s flesh: that of nature’s ability to connect. Nature connects the elements that constitute the earth, it connects ecosystems and people and their environment. Most importantly, however, nature connects us with ourselves.
Just as Georgiana died when the hand that nature gave her was severed from her being, so too will we suffer if we sever ourselves too far from nature. At this moment in history, with climate change, pollution and population on an exponential rise, Hawthorne’s story is as relevant as ever. It reminds us that while science can serve us as a tool, it can neither bring us perfection nor sever us from the nature to which we belong and of which we are a part.
In the short story, “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells the story of Aylmer, a man devoted entirely to science, who marries Georgiana, a beautiful young woman with a single imperfection. Georgiana’s imperfection is merely a birthmark on her cheek that bears the resemblance of a tiny crimson hand. Still, this mark becomes the object of Aylmer’s obsession, and he resolves to use his scientific prowess to correct “what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work.” Aylmer succeeds in removing the birthmark; however, he unfortunately causes his wife’s death in the process. Through his skillful use of diction, foreshadowing, symbolism, irony, paradox, allusion, and antithesis, Hawthorne warns of the consequences of man having the desire and power to control and alter nature, and suggests that nothing paradisiacal can exist on this earth; that being imperfect is just part of being human.
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.
Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" deals with the discrepancy between the strength of nature and the strength of science. Hawthorne's protagonist, Alymer, represents the world of science, whereas the strength of nature is represented by the birth-mark on Alymer's wife Georgiana's face. Alymer becomes obsessed with her birth-mark and, using his scientific knowledge, attempts to remove it. In this essay, I will show that Alymer's obsession results from his scientifically influenced way of thinking in categories, and also from his arrogant perfectionism, two character traits which are shown in this excerpt from the text. These character traits interfere with his moral conscientiousness and eventually caquse his downfall at the end of the story.
In Nathanial Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark,” Aylmer, a crazed, “mad-scientist,” seeks to remove the scarlet handprint birthmark from his wife, Georgiana’s cheek. From the opening of the work, the third person narrator describes Aylmer’s obsession with science and the adverse effects it has had on his social life. Aylmer is tied up in this battle within himself and with his assigned association between the natural and the spiritual world. He wishes to have as much control over these colliding worlds as possible, granting himself god-like power and control in the process. In the art of manipulating nature through science, Aylmer believes he is able to alter the spiritual aspects of the natural as well. Aylmer’s focus on spirituality is Hawthorne’s way of commenting on mankind’s fixation on sin and redemption.
Aylmer's struggle for scientific perfection transcends human possibility in Nathaniel Hawthome's "The Birthmark." He attempts to perfect that which nature rendered imperfect. When the quest for human achievement opposes divine design it has no chance of succeeding. This key element in Aylmer's twisted love leads to the demise of what he seeks so desperately to perfect, his beautiful wife. Georgianna's "fatal flaw of humanity" (Hawthorne 167), the birthmark, blocks her from perfection in his eyes, and thus blemishes Aylmer's prideful ideals. Her alleged inferiority to science leads to her death and Aylmer's complete failure as both a scientist and a spouse.
Through the actions of Aylmer’s obsession, greed, guilt, sin, his intolerance to imperfection and his ability to not except himself for who he is, he must therefore, reap what he sowed. Giving Georgiana the poison to drink, watching as the mark faded away; Aylmer feels he had successfully rid himself from the imperfection that troubled him so, unknowing the birthmark was actually the key to Georgiana’s heart and her life. As the poison took hold of her life she said to Aylmer “do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer” (Fetterly 172) and then she died, leaving Aylmer alone and empty.
None of the characters’ problems are positively resolved, but they can serve as extreme cautionary measures to the risk of tampering with human nature and imperfection. Through its characters, symbolization, and conflicts, “The Birthmark” shows the danger of trying to create perfection. While the story’s plot seems extreme and unrealistic, the author uses the devastating events throughout it to teach a rather simple lesson, that flaws are normal and shouldn’t always be “fixed”. Aylmer’s obsession with changing humanity and creating artificial perfection causes him to reject “the best the world could offer” (Hawthorne 301). Works Cited for: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "
When the quest for human feat opposes divine setup, it has no chance of prospering. In fact, trying to flee from reality and intervening nature recurrently leads to upsetting consequences. In this short narrative, it is salient to discern "that the birthmark is just that: a birthmark, that is, something physical; and a birthmark, that is, something not acquired but inherent, one of Georgiana's givens, in fact, equivalent to" the exquisite personage (Fetterley 2). Furthermore, Aylmer's revulsion for the birthmark is importunate. In other words, it can be said that he is unable to accept the fact that nature cannot be changed or altered. A literary critic proposes that, "[Aylmer] reads [the birthmark] as a sign of the inevitable imperfection of all things in nature and sees in it a challenge to man's ability to transcend nature" (Fetterley 1). In addition, Aylmer is so haughty of his knowledge that he remains unwavering in doing what he should never have done and says, "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail" (Hawthorne 12). His "past experiences, his dreams, every evidence tells him that this experiment will be fatal for Georgiana, yet he proceeds" (Eckstein 1). Nevertheless, his nightmares about the pygmy birthmark constrain him to emancipate himself from any kind of rules leading him to perform the fatal experiment of eliminating something that is inherent and indigenous. Beside...
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s romantic short story “The Birthmark,” the main character, Aylmer, is obsessively plagued with the inherent thirst for perfection. Allowing his wife to be the guinea pig was the ultimate downfall for him, as he failed in his research, as well as his lovely wife, Georgiana. The classic themes of romanticism were very evident, such as the power nature controls over science, extreme scenarios, and intense emotions. Aylmer in “The Birthmark” risks the safety of wife for science, knowledge, and perfection, forgetting the beauty of imperfection.
In his story, “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne foreshadows the fateful death of Georgiana by including a dialogue, in which she tells her husband to do anything he can to remove the birthmark off her face, regardless of the risk saying “Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust, -- life is a burden which I would fling down with joy.” Hawthorne displays Georgianna openly accept the risk of death, which was the consequence. This also is an example of change over time in Hawthorne’s work. Originally, Georgianna saw the birthmark as a positive thing that made her more attractive, as other men loved it. Howbeit, after hearing her Aylmer’s negative opinion on her birthmark,
This short story was written in the form of the third person omniscient. This point of view is one of my favorites to read in. It really helps me to understand and actually get to know all sides of the story and the feelings of the characters. From reading this story I found that Georgiana just got married to Aylmer and a few days after they wed we find out that Aylmer does not like the birthmark on Georgiana’s face. Georgiana really did not think much of it she liked it. But Aylmer wants it removed and he thinks she would look better without it. So now Georgiana thinks and looks of herself being ugly and she then becomes very unhappy. A good example, when the narrator brings our attention to Aylmer noticing the birthmark as “the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death” (Hawthorne, 1843, p. 164-2). From reading that statement it gave me the impression that her husband did not approve of that mark being there. He wanted it to be gone completely. I guess he felt that it was in the way of her beauty. For me, I think it is a sign of true beauty. I am able to grasp a better understanding of how these characters truly see the mark. Georgiana thought at one point that is made her attractive and now she has a totally different feeling about it. In this case the birthmark is used as a symbol of human imperfection. It goes to show that we all are not perfect. We are going to have things
The tone adopted by Hawthorne from the inception of the narrative toward Aylmer urges the reader to respect Aylmer’s scientific ambition—directly his triumph of head over heart, but indirectly his objectification of Georgiana and subsequent attempts to fix something that she never thought was a flaw. Not only is Aylmer’s obsession with getting rid of her birthmark selfish in that he does it for “the sake of giving himself peace” (647) rather than any desire to make his wife happy, he also admits to feeling guilt over his tyrannical treatment of her. For example, his “horror and disgust” in response to her facial blight rarely escapes her notice, and when she reacts poorly to his “convulsive shudder,” he attempts to soothe her and “release her mind from the burden of actual things” (650) as if she is an empty-headed infant in need of a pacifier. Furthermore, in response to her desperate request for its removal, he isolates her from humanity, administers potentially harmful concoctions into her rooms and body without her knowledge, and ultimately—and rapturously—succeeds in shrinking the mark at the cost of her
Hawthorne juxtaposed the meaning of the birthmark to Aylmer with its beauty for everyone else. Society saw the birthmark as the embodiment of beauty in Georgina, conversely, Aylmer only saw imperfection in his wife. Aylmer wanted to remove this symbol of death, but in trying to make Georgiana perfect and as beautiful as she could be, he ended up killing her, showing the
In today’s society, it seems that we cannot turn the television on or look in a
Nowadays everyone is hyper-focused on their appearance. From wearing designer clothes to updating social media, our lives constantly revolve around impressing each other., instead of appreciating each other’s uniqueness. The characteristic of Romanticism I chose is, “Aspiration after the sublime and the wonderful, that which transcends mundane limits.” The author that I thought best represents this characteristic is Nathaniel Hawthorne.