Symbolism In Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'The Birthmark'

“The Birthmark” What is a birthmark? Webster’s Dictionary states: A birthmark is a blemish or new growth on the skin formed before birth and is usually brown or dark red in color. There is no need to say that it is not a normal part of one’s body, a birthmark is just a part of being a human. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famously known short story, “‘The Birthmark’, tells of a scientist’s passion to overcome what he deems to be the imperfection of nature” (Cassill) and uses the birthmark its self, Aylmer’s dream, the laboratory and boudoir as symbols of the different ideas of how one gets their selves away from humanity and into a different, more perfect life. Aylmer’s wife is a beautiful woman with pale white skin. Georgiana’s nearly perfect beauty is flawed with the hand on her cheek. It is a birthmark deeply interwoven within her face. It is in the shape of a tiny hand, such as one
Hawthorne also indicates that it is equivalent to representing her flaws. It is man's nature to be mortal and imperfect, which is just what it means to be a human. Aylmer “simply fails to see the object of his affection as an ordinary human being” (Bloom). Aylmer’s desire to make his wife perfect is doomed to failure because perfection is the exclusive province of heaven and can not be found on earth. In fact, the very success of Aylmer’s perfection-inducing potion may doom Georgiana to death. Because she becomes an ideal being, completely perfect and unflawed, she is no longer able to exist in this world.
Barbara Eckstein states that “it is clear that Aylmer’s obsession with his science makes him unfit for human companionship, but what so motivates him to ‘correct… Nature’?” The desire for perfection not only kills Georgiana, it also ruins her husband because his desire to create the ideal woman becomes a fixation that prevents him from seeing the good in his