Analysis Of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birth-Mark

Psychological view of The Birth-Mark

The story ‘’The Birth-Mark’’ is a story of love, emotional attachment, desire of perfect-beauty along with sacrifice. “The Birth-mark” is a story authored by Nathaniel Hawthorne about love between Aylmer and Georgiana. Aylmer was a scientist who, in order to make his wife ( Georgiana) perfect by her charming glory, attempts to remove her birthmark from her skin. Going through “The Birth-Mark” you become forced to reconsider human desire for perfection and its appropriateness. The story touches the emotions of readers forcing them to misinterpret the actual meaning of perfect beauty. No one can deny that we, as human beings, want everything around us, perfectly by its embodiment and disposition. Be it
our personalities, car, pet, house or the little things, we want them all to be flawless. Aylmer too who, without thinking of his wife herself, attempts to eliminate the birthmark from his beautiful and beloved wife Georgiana and euthanized her involuntarily “ The Birth-Mark’’ revolves only around Alymer and Georgia. Aylmer is obsessed by Georgiana’s beauty and marries without noticing anything he disliked on her body. Aylmer overlooks Georgiana’s birthmark prior to marriage as what makes him ignore the fact that she did have one and it was his love and infatuation, common to affect many men in the world. Aylmer’s ignoring Georgiana’s birthmark entitles him to be called a lustful one.
After Aylmer had already been united with Georgiana, he realizes a heart –shaped birthmark on Georgiana’s face, which in the story proves to be a turning point in a relationship between husband and wife .Even though Aylmer loved Georgiana, he fails to ignore her birthmark and seems to be psychologically hurt.
The body and attitudes toward one’s own body with thoughts about how others perceive one’s appearance. Physical appearance withholds a very high value in society. Showing signs of imperfection on one’s body can affect the way people behave, self-image and psychological thinking. This story shows views of society imperfections and how Aylmer is a perfectionist. She had a lot of love for Aylmer. She knew of Aylmer’s devotion towards his goals and performed them perfect. Now that he noticed her birthmark it becomes an obstacle for Aylmer. Georgiana understands of this so she puts her own life a stake. It was not only love but a kind of obsession to make his wife this flawless, beautiful person, even if it killed her. This treatment seemed to be very dangerous for it was removing her birthmark through elixir or magical remedy. Even though both knew the facts about this risky procedure they were still ok with it. She remained neutral toward the dangerous elixir without a word against the substantial outcome of the cure, offered by here so called beloved husband. This shows you how strong of a bond that “Love can hold no
boundaries”. It was how devoted Georgiana was to her husband and letting her destiny take its own route without getting judged. She cared for Aylmer and his wants as well as hers.
Observing Georgiana’s acceptance for the elixir you may think that her birth mark is a reflection of her own beauty in its self. But the fact that Aylmer’s lad partner, Amerada had regretted Aylmer’s choice of getting his wife’s birthmark removed by saying indirectly “If Georgiana was my wife, I wouldn’t have removed the birthmark”. Someone will always find beauty that another person cannot see, which is the hidden beauty in Georgiana’s Aminadab was shocked at Aylmer’s decision; the moment he brought his wife into the lab to fix this so called imperfection on Georgiana’s body. Aminadab’s assumptions about Georgiana reveals how much Georgiana had a power over men with her charming beauty that Aylmer ignored due to wife not looking perfect to him. I believe the imperfection in this story is a symbol of beauty in the world.