The_Birthmark

The Birthmark In “The Birthmark”, Hawthorne described a young scientist who killed his own wife by pursuing a “perfect future” (1) while trying to remove a birthmark on his wife’s face. This becomes an obsession to Alymer and this obsession proves to be fatal to Gerogiana. The Birthmark on Georgiana face was not seen as ugly but merely as an imperfection to her overall beauty. It was the birth mark that made her human. “Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceable on all her reproductions”(2). When Alymer married Gerogiana he put little thought into the birth mark that was on her face. During the marriage Alymer became obsessed with the mark and believed it to be her “liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death”(2). Alymer becomes increasingly obsessed with the mark and Gerorgiana tells Alymer to “do whatever necessary to remove the birth mark no matter what the consequences”(3). She tells him this instead of going off and finding someone who was perfect in his eyes. This is her downfall. She is willing to risk her life for her perfection so that her husband will have a peace of mark, birth, alymer, nature, perfect, birthmark, science, life, georgiana, remove, put, face, scientist, balance, wife, obsessed, new, necessary, men, himself, believed, becomes, beauty, after, wife’s, way, thought, think, tells, result, people, own, obsession, nature2, mind