Perfection In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

She had the qualities to become married, she married a scientist to prevent some financial hardship, and she was the epitome to the perfect woman, except for her birthmark. Other women of that time period thought of her birthmark as disgusting and revolting; they were just jealous because Georgiana was capturing all the men’s attention instead of it being put on them. The men of this time period flaunted over Georgiana and thought of her birthmark as something special that makes her different; they all were fascinated by it. Aylmer thought of the birthmark to be Georgiana’s opening to mortality and the introduction to her imperfectness so she started to imagine it as a negative image being placed on her as well. To fit in with the wifely roles, Georgiana dedicated herself to her husband in more ways than one.

Aylmer’s craving to make his wife Georgiana perfect is destined to fail because perfection cannot be found on earth and only found in heaven. Aylmer obsesses about the birthmark that is on his wife for an extensive time that it actually starts to inconvenience him. For Aylmer, it symbolizes mortality and sin and comes to mast over Georgiana’s beauty in his cluttered mind. Consequently, her tiny imperfection, which is only a birth-mark, is all he can see and is so prominent to him. The desire for perfection not only kills Georgiana inside and out, but it also ruins her husband. Aylmer starts to break down because his desire to create the ideal woman becomes such a fixation that it prevents him from seeing all the good his wife has to over him and the world. Nevertheless, Georgiana says that she will risk her life for him and have the birthmark erased. Aylmer is very confident about it but ends up killing her in the process, emotionally and

Aylmer could ot possibly of loved his wife if he thought so harshly of the birthmark on her face. Love to me is accepting everything about someone and caring for them. Aylmer said it himself He said “It was a defect and it was more intolerable with every moment of their united lives” (Hawthorne 341). This tells the reader that he could not truly love his wife and from this line on it made sense to me that Alymer might have just not been all there. He was obsessed with the idea of perfection not realizing there is no such thing as perfect. I pictured him as a crazy doctor in a lab. At first Georgiana thought of her birthmark as unique and different, but Future events like Aylmer's dream made it

In “The Birthmark” we first learn about the main character named Aylmer. He is fascinated with science. “He has devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion” (Hawthorne 952) He eventually finds love with his wife Georgianna, but there is something about her he just will not seem to take much longer. Georgianna has a red birthmark on her cheek which is the shape of a small hand. While she thinks it is beautiful, the most important person in her life doesn’t feel the same way. In fact, Aylmer is truly disgusted and in shock by her mark, claiming it is a “visible mark of earthly imperfection” (Hawthorne 953). Finally telling his wife how he feels, Georgianna is in disbelief. She is upset, hurt, and confused, even questioning their marriage as she tells him “You cannot love what shocks you!” (Hawthorne 953). The last thing she would have thought is that the person she planned to spend the rest of her life with doesn’t see her beauty mark the way she does.

She knows that her husband is only looking at her birthmark. In the text, it says “It needed but a glance with a peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble” (2). Georgiana knows that her husband is judging her and she’s getting so self-conscious that she stops caring for what she wants and just wants to please her husband. Georgiana loved her birthmark but due to the constant staring, she began to hate it because it made her uncomfortable. This can be seen on page 5 when Georgiana tells Aylmer, “Oh! spare me...Pray do not look at it again. I never can forget that convulsive shudder.” She went from loving her birthmark to hating it and wanting to get rid of it. All thanks to her husband. If he truly loved her, he would love her birthmark too because that’s what makes her unique. The removal of the birthmark causes Georgiana her life. “The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of birthmark that sole taken of human imperfection faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere…” (11) Georgiana died because she tried to run away from the

She wants it removed just like Aylmer, which she would rather die for than keep the birthmark she later viewed as a “flaw” to be perfect for her husband. People tend to point out many others “flaws” rather than keeping to themselves and making themselves feel better or better of themselves while bringing others down. Aylmer, pointing out Georgiana's birthmark, thinks there is something wrong with her which he cannot stand the idea of watching her

Upon realizing just how much his wife’s birthmark bothered him, Aylmer made it his goal to do whatever was necessary to rid Georgiana of her only “imperfection”. While this story is a work of fiction, the way of thinking is anything but fictional. With the gender dynamic in this story in very centered around the man. The man is the one who makes the decisions, and the woman is expected to go along with them. If the man wants something of the wife, she is expected to do everything in her power to satisfy him. The woman, on the other hand, is often heavily pressured into submitting to this kind of unhealthy relationship. Whether she is blinded by love, afraid of what

Unlike the other men, Aylmer thinks Georgina’s birthmark is not “a charm” (Hawthorne). In fact, Aylmer doesn’t know “whether to term [it] a defect or a beauty” (Hawthorne). Georgina becomes emotional by her husband’s shocking words, she tells him “you cannot love what shocks you!” (Hawthorne). Aylmer’s obsession for perfection was so big that he could not tolerate a simple mark on his lover’s cheek. To be human is to be imperfect and for Aylmer to think his wife’s birthmark is a “visible mark of earthly imperfection,” is almost immoral. His quest for human perfection surpasses the morals of marriage. Aylmer failed to stand by the marriage values and learn to love his wife’s “fatal flaw” (Hawthorne). As humans, we’re taught to have morals and ethics that provide us with the tools necessary to do the right thing. In the contrary, if we cross the line like Aylmer, a tragedy is bound to happen. A tragedy such as killing the love of his life reassured him of those morals humans are taught to live by. Hawthorne, asserts the idea that human nature is imperfect; therefore, it would be immoral to strive for perfection. By Aylmer removing her birthmark it is almost like removing her humanity.

simple birthmark where the obsession is because he perceives it in a more symbolic way. Georgiana has often been told that the mark on her cheek is a “charm” but Aylmer does not think so where he said, “No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect, which

Portrayed as spiritual and intellectual in contrast with his crude laboratory assistant Aminadab, Aylmer becomes disturbingly obsessed with a birthmark on his wife’s countenance. The plot of the short story revolves around the man’s attempt in removing the mark, which results in the death of Georgiana. In the very beginning of the story, the audience discovers through the narration that Aylmer views his wife’s birthmark as more than a congenital, benign irregularity on the skin. In reality, the primary reason why he becomes severely obsessed with the birthmark is because in his eyes, the mark symbolizes something. Aylmer proceeds to further clarify his inner thoughts by replying to his wife, “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” (Mays 340). Although Georgiana is initially mortified and even goes as far to question the existence of the marriage between them, the narration later sheds light and explains that the precise reason why Aylmer is excessively bothered with the birthmark is because he regards Georgiana as virtually the embodiment of perfection. As a consequence, perceiving a flaw on his wife’s image that clashes with the concept of her beauty inevitably leads him to feel aggrieved and begin to judge the birthmark as a dangerous blemish residing on her skin.

It is clear to say that perfection is completely unattainable. So, although Aylmer is capable of ridding the birthmark, if anyone is able to take away their imperfections, it is inevitable that society will become corrupt.

Such arrogance is the reason why the romance became in tragedy. Aylmer as devote scientist had been influenced by discoveries of the 19th century. For him the nature can be modified through science, nature is flawed and man can improve it. In a deeper sense, human life is imperfect because of the death, also the sin, imperfection is a symbol of the mortal life and one of the purposes of science is prolonging life; so perfection is seen as eternity, symbol of immortality. In the case of Aylmer he is married with a woman he considers almost perfect, according to him she is so perfect that is insupportable see in her the birth-mark in her check, because that just emphasizes just a small imperfection that damages the beauty of a perfect work of art, something that recalled the mortal condition of Aylmer’s wife as the life of any other human, a fact that made of ​​the birthmark a nightmare for the couple as describes the story:

In Hawthorne’s short story “The Birthmark”, Aylmer feels that his wife Georgiana is a miracle and that she is perfect. Her only flaw was the birthmark in the shape of a hand placed on her cheek. Instead of focusing on all her Georgiana’s perfections, Aylmer only focused on one of her flaws, the birthmark. Aylmer constructs a statement about her birthmark saying that, “It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain.”(Meyer 345)

In the story “The Birth-Mark” Nathaniel Hawthorne illustrates a man with an obsession for perfection of the human body. With a desire to reach the ultimate level of perfection, Aylmer’s obsession ultimately creates a path of destruction that tragically ends in the death of his devoted wife, Georgiana.

Imagine this: You’re a newlywed and you think that you’ve finally found someone to love and accept you for who and what you are. However, after the honeymoon, they look you dead in your eyes and say “You know that one thing you do? I hate it and you need to change.” Or even worse, they look at you and say “You know, you’re really ugly.” That’s exactly what Aylmer does to his wife in the “The Birthmark,” a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Aylmer, is a man of science that at the beginning of the story, decides that it is time for him to leave his laboratory and find a wife. He eventually marries a woman by the name of Georgiana. She has a birthmark on her cheek in the shape of a hand, which Aylmer, oddly enough, did not notice