Owning Perfection: The Struggle between Science and Nature in
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.”
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date published 11/12/2007
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SummaryIn many love poems written to praise the beauty or virtue of a woman, the woman or the woman’s love is often seen as a material possession or a thing to be owned. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark,” the woman is seen as something to be improved upon and perfected. Love is not only something to be possessed; it is something to be invested in, like any other expensive material thing. Hawthorne’s story is not only about love within a materially driven culture, it is about dominance and dependence. It is also about the struggle between nature and science, the obsessions produced by this struggle, and how the struggle resolves.
Table of Contents
- Hawthorne's description of Aylmer and his career as a scientist.
- His dominance over his wife.
- Georgiana proves to be a rather weak antithesis.
- Hawthorne's description of the way Aylmer sees science.
- Aylmer's final domination over Georgiana.
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