The Birth Mark Symbolism
In the short story, The Birth Mark by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there is a very interesting
and intellectual theme throughout this narrative. The author does a very inspiring
job using different elements in the story such as, symbolism and irony. The author s
main theme of the story is striving for perfection and the conflict of scienceagainst
nature. Thus Hawthorne writes this narrative to provide the reader what happens if
we rely too much on achieving supremacy. In The Birth Markthe story explains how
a man, named Aylmer, is completely obsessed about an unusual birthmark on his
wife Georgiana s face. Aylmer states how beautiful and almost perfect his wife
seems to be, for example, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature, that
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 (Hawthorne 291). The
imperfection, as stated, is the small... Show more content on Helpwriting.net ...
Explaining throughout this story how just about every living thing is simply
imperfect in some way, and that everything that lives must die when its time is up.
Although to Aylmer the birthmark is, the symbol of his wife s liability to sin,
sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer s somber imagination was not long in rendering
the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever
Georgiana s beauty, whether of soul of sense, had given him delight (Hawthorne
292). In consequence, Aylmer operates on his wife to remove the birthmark to help
her become perfect but, ironically right as he removes the birthmark Georgiana
awakens and says to Aylmer, Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying (Hawthorne 301).
Hawthorne in the last paragraph tells us that 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