The Birthmark Character Analysis

Words: 650
Pages: 3
Open Document
In the short story, “The Birthmark”, Nathaniel Hawthorne combines a man’s love for science and romance into a fatal love affair. The main character in this story Aylmer takes his love for perfection and science to a whole another level. He goes from discovering new inventions in the world, to attempting to perfect nature in its most complex state. He attempts to remove a birthmark from his wife, Georgina’s face, to try to destroy what Nature left behind. Aylmer uses his “love” for his wife, and his obsession for perfection, to prove to himself and society that he is brilliant enough to defy nature itself.
Aylmer is a well-known and respected alchemist in philosophy during the latter part of the last century, and he takes pride in his work …show more content…
“Georgina has it occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed? No indeed, to tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.” In this statement she states that she thinks her birthmark is almost like a good luck charm. But when he begins to show hatred for it, she becomes self-conscious of the mark and his cruel words toward her birthmark. “Ah, upon another face perhaps it might, but never on yours. You came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, shocks as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.” He criticizes her and tells her if this mark were not here that she would be perfect. But, because she has it, she is not. Moreover, she is so in love with him that she is willing to sacrifice her life for his happiness. “If there be the remotest possibility of it, let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust, life is a burden, which I would fling down with joy. This woman literally puts her life in his hands because she is so consumed in “love” that she wants to satisfy and please him, even if it means risking her
Show More

Related Documents: The Birthmark Character Analysis

Union And Separation In Elizabeth R. Napier's 'The Birth-Mark'

‘Scheidekünstler’: The Pattern of Union and Separation” is an analysis of the underlying messages in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birth-Mark.” Hawthorne’s short story describes the attempts of an alchemist, Aylmer, to remove a birthmark from his wife Georgiana’s cheek. Unfortunately, Aylmer soon becomes so obsessed with the birthmark’s removal that he gifts Georgiana a concoction that leads to her death; nonetheless, Aylmer is more contented that the birthmark is gone than discontented that his wife is dead.…

Words 814 - Pages 4

The Birthmark Critical Analysis

Summary In Judith Fetterley’s critical essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, she uses a feminist strategy to analyze his short story. The position she takes is that the story is a “demonstration of how to murder your wife and get away with it” (Fetterley). I do not think that he was actually trying to kill his wife, but I do think he was striving for perfection. In that quest, he did rid her of the birthmark; but the consequence was death. She argues that the story could not be told in…

Words 820 - Pages 4

Personal Literary Analysis Essay

paper, I decided to go with “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne because it is an absolutely fascinating story of the lengths you will go to make the one you love happy and the pursuit of perfection. Honestly, I didn’t deeply identify with any of the major characters but I have learned that a story doesn’t have to intensely resound with the events and details of my personal life for me to appreciate the beauty and depth of good character development. 1) Which character in your selected story stood…

Words 2007 - Pages 9

Conundrums In James Dashner's The 13th Reality

connecting with the characters. Recently in the story, the main character, Atticus, better known as “Tick” finally sifted through the hints of the letters, and found the magic words inside of them. Atticus now needs to get rid of the irrelevant information and follow through with the instructions. I predict that Tick will be brought to Master George with Mothball: “When ya finally…

Words 704 - Pages 3

Emily Dickinson Alliteration

1. Alliteration • Definition-. • Please provide an example from “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” • Briefly explain why you feel the use of alliteration is important in this poem. o Alliteration is the repetition of the same sound or letter near one another. An example of alliteration in “Because I could Not Stop for Death” is in the line “We passed the setting sun”. Alliteration is important to this poem as Dickinson showed the progression of the day. She used alliteration to describe the time…

Words 2746 - Pages 11

LOTF Gender Essay

gender roles can cause students to act in ways in line with their ideal of their assigned gender that actually harm their health (1). One place we can see their ugly heads be reared is in the novel Lord of the Flies written by William Goulding. Goulding’s analysis of the psychosis of the young boys shows the harmful effects of society’s traditional construct of masculinity through the boy’s violence towards each other in primal situations and their assumption of traditional leadership roles through shows of power…

Words 1371 - Pages 6

GRADE 10 ENGLISH Essay examples

Parts of speech (8): Noun: person, place, or thing (concrete) Pronoun: Take place of noun (he, she, it) Adjective: describes a noun Verb: an action (remember “to be” and “to have” are actions) Adverb: describes an action (often ends in ‘ly’) Conjunction: links words or actions Preposition: links nouns, pronouns, & phrases (to show relationships in time, shape, or logic) Interjection: added to show emotion (!) *Articles: a, and, the The big black dog ran noisily through the neighborhood…

Words 7508 - Pages 31

CRM 1301 Midterm uOttawa Carolyn Gordon Essays

The Demonic Perspective Trephining Individual who were having illusions or were delusional had a hole drilled in their skull in order to get rid of the spirits. If that person was still alive, the procedure was successful Witchcraft Correlated with ‘The Crucible’ where Tituba, Sarah Good & Sarah Osborne are accused of witchcraft in Salem, 1692 What to do with the witches?! Exodus 22:18- Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live Leviticus 20:27- A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit…

Words 10213 - Pages 41