Symbolism In The Birthmark

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birth-Mark, Aylmer, a scientist tries to use science in order to make his wife perfect. She has a birthmark on her left cheek that to him causes him to believe is the only thing that causes her to not be perfect. Nathaniel Hawthorne is trying to stress how people have this cultural necessity for perfection. That perfection is something people must succeed in achieving be it in a passion or even more visually. And that this sort of idealism can never lead to anything well, because perfection is impossible. Aylmer tries to gain perfection scientifically and in his wife's beauty. In the end she dies due to his trying to achieve perfection. Just to show that perfection is an unrealistic ideal that our culture pushes.
In the beginning of The Birth-Mark Aylmer is described as both loving his wife and science.
He is said to dislike the fact that his wife's birthmark causes his wife to not be perfect. Georgina herself is beautiful and the red birthmark on her left cheek is something she does not mind. Each time the birthmark is talked about by her husband she goes from being confident to embarrassed by her birthmark. She never really thought perfection until her husband starts to push her into finding a way to remove. He symbolizes how others and society push the idea of perfection onto others especially visually. It has become a part of many cultures to idealize visual perfection. Her husband does just this and convinces her to decide to allow him to remove her birthmark. Without this cultural ideal people would not feel like a birthmark or anything visual is meant to be
perfect.
Visual perfection is extremely prevalent in the writing, but a mental perfection is a big part of the perfection strived for by Aylmer. He strives to perfect his scientific ability and achievements by trying to remove Georgina's birthmark. In the text it says, "Until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind and of the lengths which he might find his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace." What Aylmer is feeling is that he found that he was willing to cost everything and anything to accomplish his goal. To make his science as perfect as possible, whatever the cost. This feeling takes over him entirely. Aylmer even convulses at the sight of his wife's birthmark. Afterward he still has the heart to convince her to continue with removing the red mark. It can also be seen how excited Aylmer gets when speaking of being his wife one hundred percent perfect, "I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and the, most beloved what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work!" He believes entirely in himself. Aylmer believes that he has the skills to make Georgina perfect and in the end make science as perfect. Not only does Hawthorne wants to show that not only does the cultural ideal of perfection affect our visual perceptions, but our mental perfections as well. Our cultural perfection expands to both mental and physical, like that of Georgina and Aylmer.
Even though Nathanial Hawthorne wrote this short story 1843, the cultural ideal for complete perfection is only beginning to change. For a very longtime perfection has been an ideal all over the world. From Chinese woman wearing certain shoes so their feet would be small to standardized testing scores being a factor to how good a school you could enter. Both striving to enforce perfection. Now people on social media are trying to show that visual perfection is impossible and that all are beautiful just the way you are. While there is still those who still stress perfection the cultural ideal and definition is beginning to change. This story would be a great representation of what striving for perfection leads to.