...“Nearly Perfect” An Analysis of “The Birth-Mark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne By Samantha Truglio Professor Baber Composition II #2043 11 October 2014 Word Count 727 Samantha Truglio Professor Baber Composition II 2043 11 October 2014 Nearly Perfect An Analysis of “The Birth-Mark” In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Birth-Mark”, he shows us the folly of human nature and our obsession with perfection. Hawthorne conveys his message through his main characters Aylmer, a scientist and lover of nature, and his beautiful wife, Georgina, who bears a small, crimson colored, hand-shaped birthmark upon her left cheek. Despite the amount of love that Aylmer has for his wife, he can’t help but to become engulfed with the mark that stains his wife’s cheek that keeps her from being perfect. Being a man of science he decides to create an elixir to remove her one flaw. “The Birth-Mark” is a story filled with potent symbolism to illustrate the scientist’s superficial endeavor, destructive irony, and a theme that provides us with moral allegory. The birth mark represents various things throughout the story, the most predominate symbol in this story is Georgina’s birthmark, which symbolizes the imperfection of human nature and mortality. Georgina was admired by many men, for she “came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature” (Hawthorne 291), but the only man she craved admiration from was Aylmer, who was not able to get past the slightest defect that blessed her cheek. The...
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...Harlan Griffin j.r Moore-Williamson 2/8/12 In the short fiction story the “Birthmark” Nathaniel Hawthorne focuses on the said Human Condition. The human condition is known as the wide variety of imperfections in the human race; emotions such as greed, jealousy, & envy are only some examples of the condition. Hawthorne focuses this condition into his two main characters in the story Aylmer a brilliant scientist obsessed with perfection, and his wife Georgiana who is willing to give everything even her life to be apart of Aylmer’s perfect world. Aylmer shows his obsession with perfection in his work and dreams. He is known in the world for his success in the sciences. His many discoveries’ of the physical world leads him into journeys in to conquering the spiritual world. This leads his mind into thinking of more disturbing experiments. Though he states he would never would act on any of his more outlandish ambitions. Some of his more controversial ideas include, turning metal into gold, creating human life from scratch and even creating a potion which gives the drinker eternal life. He believes that such things are capable under his hand. Hawthorne only make this characters obsession with perfection more noticeable and even gives the idea that Aylmer wants control over nature its self. Once Aylmer and his wife Georgiana move into together, He quits his life of science and commits his time to his wife. Though he an his wife had been together for sometime...
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