Symbolism, And Failure In The Birthmark By Nathaniel Hawthorne

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark," Hawthorne focuses on science vs nature, symbolism, and overall failure. Aylmer seems to believe science can achieve anything, and his craving to make his wife perfect is doomed from the start because only divine beings can achieve perfection. Aylmer is a brilliant but foolish scientist who decides to use science to make his beautiful wife perfect. Aylmer has accomplished many things that he seems to be proud of and willing to show off to Georgiana. Georgiana soon realizes that those achievements have fallen short of his goals, but she still goes through with the experiment out of love for Aylmer. Throughout the story Hawthorne uses many quotes to show Aylmer's battle with nature, which we later realize his battle may actually be with science. Hawthorne starts the short story off by expressing Aylmer's passion for science saying- "In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical …show more content…
Aylmer is not only an alchemist, which is bad enough: he is a bad alchemist (Rosenberg(7) Due to the fact that not only does he kill Georgiana, but that most of his experiments were failures because they fell short of his desired goal. "The Birthmark" says "Much as he had accomplished, she could not help but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach."(Birthmark) With that being said it came to know surprise to me that the experiment with his wife would be a