The various contrasts between Victor and the monster, including their opposite personalities (introvert Victor and social Monster) and their ability to control their emotions (Victor's childlike impulsiveness and the monster's oddly mature sense of logic), in conjunction with their common penchant for selfishness, may suggest something about human nature. Maybe Shelley was saying that no matter what a person's individual personality is, there is no person who is incapable of being selfish. Maybe she was saying we are all innately selfish, i.e. by nature, a person looks out primarily for his or her own interests.

What if Victor's and the monster's individual personalities had been switched? Since, as described by Tyler, they have such opposite social habits, the monster craving companionship and the creator craving solitude, it would seem that Victor's temperament would have been better suited for the monster's lifestyle. Victor could have spent his days alone in pursuit of science, while the monster (in Victor's place), would have exulted in the love of friends and family. This may have played a factor in the monster's sense of envy.

In some ways, it seems that the monster is more logical and even responsible than Victor. The monster feels emotion keenly, alternately becoming furious and anguished, but his actions are carefully thought out. He bases his decision to kill William upon his deep desire for vengeance and his logic that Victor should suffer, not upon pure rage. Victor is ruled more by emotion (consider the antic state in which the monster was created) and less by logic, making him less responsible.

In his criticism of Frankenstein, the monster argues that his creation was "wanton", or deliberate and without moral provocation. In other words, besides his own intellectual gratification, Victor had no reason to create the monster. He did it merely to see if he could, without consideration of the consequences of his actions. Thus, the monster's creation was selfish.

And yet, the monster asks Victor to repeat his selfish action by creating a female. He has logical reasoning behind it, in contrast to Victor, but still, his reasons are selfish. He wants acceptance and companionship, but he does not take into consideration the havoc that a new monster could potentially wreak on the world. Furthermore, the monster is willing to threaten and kill in order to attain a companion, showing that his motives are far from selfless. The exaggerated lengths to which the monster is willing to go also suggest that the monster is the exaggerated form of a human (including having a selfish nature).

One of the tones which Hawthorne uses in the Birthmark could be called didactic or moralistic. At the end of the story, he reflects upon Alymer's actions by saying, "The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present." He tries to present the folly of Alymer's actions to perhaps prevent readers from making similar mistakes.

it is interesting how Alymer's obsession with perfection contrasts the natural world of which the Romantics were so obsessed. Very little in nature is really perfect and without flaw. Diamonds are valued for their minute imperfections. No human body is completely perfect, nor is any person's behavior perfect all the time. In showing the negative effects of Alymer's efforts to attain perfection, perhaps Hawthorne was saying that nature is imperfect and man cannot change that.

While The Birthmark does certainly contain the element of a dysfunctional marriage between a tyrannical male and a self-conscious female, the entire society might not have characterized by such relationships. There are so many relationships today that share the same characteristics. Consider the woman who gets plastic surgery because she is told she is ugly, or the woman who changes her personality just to feel valued. There are plenty of abusive (verbally and emotionally) marriages, but there are plenty of healthy ones as well. Thus, it is not fair to generalize marriages in the Romantic Era as pathetic or in ours as equal and healthy. Perhaps instead of a commentary on contemporary matrimony, The Birthmark is a commentary on human relationships in general, including their potential to be abusive.

The The suggestion that The Birthmark represents the female as a perfect being is interesting considering that in Frankenstein, the character of Elizabeth is idealized as well. Georgiana is physically idealized, being a person almost without imperfection, while Elizabeth is morally idealized, being a person whose ethics are somehow "better" than Victor's. Perhaps the Romantic view of women was an image, however exaggerated, of moral beauty and perfection.

The Birthmark, like The Castle of Otranto and The Fall of the House of Usher, is focused on the relationships and interactions between characters. It contrasts "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", which is more focused upon the interactions of the Mariner with various supernatural elements. Compared to the other works, it has a more prominent commentary on scientific exploration.

Furthermore, sometimes, corporations pay experts to analyze jurors to get a particular outcome. The jurors are not necessarily as random as they are supposed to be. Experts try to predict how a person will vote based on their occupation, race, economic standing, gender, and other factors. In this way, a jury can be rigged, and it might be in the defendant's best interest to have a trial by a single judge instead of a jury.