Perfection In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birthmark”, Aylmer, is a scientist that challenges his love for science in combination against his love for a woman. After he dedicates his life to Georgiana, his wife, Aylmer slowly grows more and more disgust for the imperfection of a birthmark on her cheek. The birthmark is a crimson, red-shaped figure that only appears on her face when the natural rosiness of her face vanishes. As the birthmark begins to haunt Aylmer’s mind as the time goes by, he decides to surgically remove Georgiana’s mark from her cheek in his laboratory. As numerous attempts go by, Georgiana is instructed to drink a potion recipe--the birthmark finally disappears from her cheek, and she dies shortly after. First of all, as Alymer recollects his thoughts on his dream about Georgiana’s birthmark, he makes a final decision on

solving the issue that he has been slowly growing more obsessed with each moment. Aylmer explains that he will “correct what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work” (Hawthorne 8-9).

Aylmer’s excessive distress on correcting Georgiana’s birthmark and achieving complete perfection begins to reveal his true character of selfishness--he does not seem to care about his wife and strives towards superficial perfection, instead of viewing his wife as perfection in her own manner. He is willing to go to great measures in order to prove that one can perfect Nature through science. Because Georgiana truly loves her husband, she convinces herself that it is necessary to submit to the experiment and risk her own life in order to make Aylmer content. If Aylmer was truly in love with Georgiana, he would not be deeply disturbed by something as insignificant as a birthmark. This proves that Aylmer’s love of science overrules the love for his wife, as he is set in attempting to perfect what Nature has set upon her face. As the story progresses in the laboratory, Aylmer, his assistant, Aminadab, and Georgiana continue to work together in order to accomplish their goal by testing the best method for removing the

birthmark. Right as the birthmark “faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere” (9). Because Aylmer has attempted to reach total perfection, death is the ultimate consequence. As stated earlier in the story, Georgiana’s birthmark is directly linked to her heart, or more so, who she is. As Aylmer attempts to remove the birthmark, he attempts to remove who she is. Aylmer's quest for perfection ultimately leads to the death of his own wife. More so, the “deeply impressive moral” in the story reveals that total perfection cannot be achieved. In “The Birthmark” “Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature” (5). Through his scientific experiments, Aylmer attempted to outrule Nature by striving to achieve more perfection than Nature could even manifest.