Hawthorne's "The Birthmark": Science, Perfection, and Tragedy
This essay analyzes Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Birthmark" as an ironic critique of humanity's excessive faith in science. It examines how the protagonist Aylmer, a scientist consumed by his belief in science's power to overcome nature, transforms his wife Georgiana's tiny birthmark into a symbol of intolerable imperfection. The essay traces how Aylmer's scientific obsession distorts his judgment, ultimately costing Georgiana her life. It also draws a brief comparison to Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," arguing that both works warn against using science to impose a vision of perfection, demonstrating that such pursuits extract a devastating human cost.
- Introduction: Science as a New Religion: Science replaces religion, creating misplaced faith in solutions
- Aylmer's Character and His Love of Science: Aylmer's identity as scientist overshadows his role as husband
- The Birthmark as a Symbol of Nature's Imperfection: A trivial blemish becomes a symbol of nature's error
- Distorted Judgment and the Creation of a Problem: Extreme language reveals Aylmer's obsessive distortion of reality
- The Fatal Consequences of Scientific Obsession: Georgiana dies as science triumphs over human love
- Conclusion: What Is Lost in the Pursuit of Perfection: Both Hawthorne and Vonnegut warn against science-driven perfection
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The essay opens with a clear, arguable thesis — that Hawthorne's story critiques misplaced faith in science — and sustains that argument throughout each body paragraph.
- It uses well-chosen direct quotations from the primary text to support every major analytical claim, grounding interpretation in textual evidence.
- The closing comparison to Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron" broadens the argument effectively, showing the theme has wider literary resonance without losing focus on the primary text.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates close reading as a core analytical method. Rather than summarizing the plot, the writer examines specific word choices — phrases like "fatal birthmark" and "cureless deformity" — and explains what those language choices reveal about a character's psychology and the story's thematic concerns. This is a foundational skill in literary analysis at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The essay follows a classic five-paragraph structure expanded slightly to six sections: an introductory argument about science as religion, a character analysis of Aylmer, close reading of the birthmark's significance, analysis of distorted judgment, consequences of obsession, and a concluding comparison to a second literary text. Each section builds logically on the last, maintaining a coherent through-line from thesis to conclusion.
Introduction: Science as a New Religion
Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" is an ironic story in which man's faith in science as the ultimate savior of humankind is demonstrated to be misplaced. Ever since science came to the forefront of human knowledge, people have continually increased their faith in it and, consequently, their dependency on it. In a way, science has become a new form of religion — one in which people place their faith to solve what they perceive as everyday problems. However, too much faith in science's ability to solve problems has created a situation where people turn to it to address problems that do not actually exist. Because science has already solved many of life's major challenges, such as diseases that plagued humanity for centuries, people seem to look for new problems for science to solve. "The Birthmark" is a perfect example of how a person can turn to science to address what they see as a problem, when in fact it is not a problem at all. And when people use science in such a way, tragedy inevitably follows.
Aylmer's Character and His Love of Science
The focus of Hawthorne's tale, Aylmer, is described as "an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy" (Hawthorne). In other words, he is a scientist — but in the early nineteenth century, science was sometimes viewed as being surrounded by an almost mystic aura. Science was the means by which mankind might "ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself" (Hawthorne). While Hawthorne admits that he does not know whether Aylmer truly believed mankind could control nature through science, Aylmer's actions seem to reveal the truth. He may have been smitten for a time with his new wife — enough to barely notice the small birthmark on her face — but in time his love of science overcame his love of his wife.
When, not long after their wedding, Aylmer told his young wife Georgiana that the small birthmark on her cheek "shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection," he revealed his true devotion (Hawthorne). Science, to men such as Aylmer, was believed to be the means by which mankind could control and even remake nature as they saw fit. When Aylmer began to notice the birthmark — something he had overlooked while infatuated — and to think of ways to "repair" the deficiency, he was turning to science as the instrument by which man could overcome nature's mistakes.
The Birthmark as a Symbol of Nature's Imperfection
What was the great fault of nature that Aylmer wished to repair? It was a small birthmark that could only be seen clearly when Georgiana's skin was pale. If there was any rosiness in her cheeks, it was difficult to see, and "when she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek" (Hawthorne). The birthmark was so small that it could be covered completely with Georgiana's two fingertips — hardly a major physical ailment or deformity. But because Aylmer's true love was science and its promise of complete control over nature's errors, a small birthmark became, to him, a symbol of nature's failure. Because Aylmer was a scientist, he believed his science could solve what he had come to view as a major defect, when in reality it was only a minor inconvenience. His belief that science could solve any problem ultimately clouded his vision and judgment.
Conclusion: What Is Lost in the Pursuit of Perfection
The kind of wisdom Hawthorne questions is the sort that Kurt Vonnegut's protagonist in "Harrison Bergeron" seems to recognize when he rejects society's reliance on science and technology to impose what it regards as perfection. Both "The Birthmark" and "Harrison Bergeron" explore mankind's attempt to use science to achieve perfection — and what is lost as a result. Aylmer's attempt to correct nature's mistake and make his wife perfect, and Vonnegut's dystopian society's attempt to enforce perfect equality, together demonstrate that while science may be capable of performing such feats, they often come at a tremendous and irreversible human price.
Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birthmark." The Literature Network. Web. 21 Sept. 2013. http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/125/
Vonnegut, Kurt. "Harrison Bergeron." Wordfight.org. Web. 21 Sept. 2013. http://www.wordfight.org/bnw/bnw-unit_packet.pdf
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.