The Birthmark

Although I found this story easy to get through and interesting, I did not enjoy it. I found it was constantly making me mad that the people in the story, especially the men, were so superficial that something as simple as a birthmark would bother them. I found that the story was almost boring because it revolved solely around Georgiana's one imperfection. Aylmer spends the entire story obsessing over his wife's imperfection and how it could be fixed by his scientific skills. He seems to be under the impression that without that red hand shaped birthmark on her cheek Georgiana would be perfect. That impression leaves him very unhappy with his wife and her appearance.

One day he suggests to his wife that he remove that mark from her face. He had a disturbing dream about trying to remove the birthmark and having it sink in and grasp her heart. Because his wife is troubled by his absolute hatred for the make on her cheek she agrees to let him remove it. Georgiana even states that she considers her mark given to her by nature and thus connected to her heart. She has some of her own foreshadowing that the removal of this mark was wrong but due to her husband and her feelings for him she still agrees to the surgery.

Aylmer makes up a concoction or "potion" that is intended to remove the birthmark. Georgiana wants so much to please her husband that she feels she would rather go through with the process and possibly see death than go against him and live with the mark on her cheek. To Aylmer's great delight after Georgiana ingests the potion it starts working just as planned. The birthmark starts to fade, but at a price. As the birthmark fades so does Georgiana. She proclaims to her husband that she is dying and as the birthmark disappears she breathes her last breath. The adverse obsession that Aylmer had with Georgiana's birthmark ultimately led to his wife's death. Perfection is unattainable no matter how hard we try, and here in the story Aylmer went against nature and paid the price.