The Birthmark

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The Birthmark By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ryan Kelly, Jonathan Gilmore and Marco Stallone
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Brief Biography

• Nathaniel Hawthorne
• -Born in Salem, Massachusetts on July 4th, 1804.
• -Puritan, which influenced his writing career.
• -Father was a sea captain, died when Nathaniel
  was young.
• -A leg injury made Hawthorne not able to be
  mobile. Left him to do a lot of reading and
  thinking.
• - Attended Bowdoin College from 1821 to 1825.
• - Most of early stories published anonymously.
• -Died on May 19, 1864.

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Plot
The story starts off with a man named Aylmer
that is a scientist and natural philosopher who
marries a woman named Georgiana. Aylmer's wife
is beautiful, but there is a birthmark on her
cheek that is the shape of a hand. He one day
asks her if she would like to have it removed.
Georgiana seems to be taken back by her husband
ask her if she would want to remove this mark
that she has always had and some even considered
it to be a charm and even admirer it. Aylmer
starts to become obsessed with the birthmark. One
night he has a dream about it, that he was
cutting in to his wife skin and kept cutting so
deep that he cut her heart out. Georgiana seeing
Aylmer's obsession that he has on removing the
mark she says that she is willing to risk her
life to remove it. They decide to remove the
birthmark in Aylmer's laboratory. In the
laboratory Aylmer leaves Georgiana for a couple
hour and she start read over his journals and
reads one about her own experiment and starts to
cry. Aylmer brings her the potion and shows her
how it works on a flower taking away any blots
that is on it. After Georgiana drinks the potion
she falls asleep and while she sleeps Aylmer
studies everything about her. Georgina wakes up
from her sleep only to tell Aylmer that she is
dying and that you have rejected the best that
earth could offer(Hawthorne 235).
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Themes

• Man vs. Nature (God)
• Man would 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.
  Page 225
• Man is trying to obtain God like powers in their
  search for power over nature
• Humans attempt to obtain power over God can never
  be achieved.
• The plant
• Georgiana's portrait
• Georgiana's death
• Humans are inherently imperfect, but this
  imperfection is what makes us perfect.
• In Aylmer's dream the Crimson Hand reached all
  the way down to Georgianna's heart.
• Our imperfections are what make us unique (page
  226)
• To rid our imperfections would be to get rid of
  our human nature
• Aylmer's sleep can be interpreted as a type of
  death
• Georgiana loved Aylmer more after reading his log
  of scientific failures.
• Can only love once we accept imperfection

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Themes

• Ultimate sacrifice out of love
• Georgiana died to make Aylmer happy
• She was aware of the risk but did it for Aylmer's
  sake
• Our flaws, which are what makes us perfect, are
  what align us with God
• 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. Page
  235
• Georgiana was a perfect soul in a perfect body
• Removing the birthmark left only a perfect soul,
  accomplished only through death
• Pygmalion
• Perfect statue brought to life so sculptor can
  marry her
• Opposite of Aylmer
• Aylmer could not see her true perfection and
  decided to remove it making her imperfect
  resulting in her death