Along with discussing these topics, It would be acceptable to explore the metaphor that is developed through the characterizations of Aminadab and the comparisons of those characterizations to Alymer.

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.

In the Gothic literature there are many constant devises that are kept within the text such as in the Ancient Mariner and the Birthmark.Both of the female characters are held with the power to determine the fate of the males in the story. The life and death in the Ancient Mariner is obviously the determinant of what happens in the story and in the fall of Usher when Elizabeth's life and death is the fend of her brothers. There is also a reoccurring theme of a woman in distress with an over powering tyrannical male. In the Castle of Otranto Isabelle is in hiding in order to not to marry Manfred and his bad temper. The same follows in The Birthmark when Georgeanna is put in a state of submission to her husband and his tyrannical personality and risked her life doing so. Another Gothic device that is repeated in the these Gothic stories is the use of foreshadow. The Castle of Otranto puts the use of this mysterious giant that can only be seen by some. With this use of mystery it can foretell future inexplicable events. The Ancient Mariner also uses foreshadow through the killing of the Albatross. This Albatross was a sign of good intentions and when the Mariner killed it it foreshadowed that future events would lead to a threatening atmosphere. Then in the Birthmark when the scientist becomes irritably obsessed with the mark on his wife's face we can elude to a situation involving metonymy. Foreshadowing also relates to The Fall of the House of the Usher in that the house with its "cracks" and " rotting smell" could follow to an unknown, mysterious occurrence.

The female is represented as a perfect being; however she has a “hand,” upon her face as a mark of her birth. She seems to be a submissive individual that will delve into anything her “loving,” husband wishes her to do. As a Gothic device, she is represented as in distress because she is continually overpowered by her tyrannical husband. In the end, her submissiveness nature is the reason she reaches her impending doom of death. When her spirit leaves her lifeless body, it is understood that she was an angel in a human form, yet released to be a being of Heaven once her imperfections were expelled from the flesh of her body.

On the topic of marriage, Georgiana stands as the representation of an obedient wife. Georgiana's obedience also goes to portray the tyrannical male within the text. Upon her husband's first remark of the imperfection she seems appalled as Aylmer says that the mark shocks him, exclaiming, "You cannot love what shocks you!" But as the story goes along, she begins to agree with her husband in the fact that the birthmark highlights and even magnifies her imperfection. The idea that Georgiana simply complies to her husband's wishes and abandons what she once felt so strongly about emphasizes just how tyrannical Aylmer is.

Georgiana had been told by all of her previous lovers how perfect she is, and how her admirers would risk their lives to simply kiss the hand upon her cheek. This also highlights the tyranny of Aylmer because he remarked that the birthmark made her appearance hideous. Because this was the first time that Georgiana had been told something other than of her perfection, her obedience becomes evident.

Throughout every piece of Gothic literature that we have read the whole theme of what love is and how we should respond to it has been really disturbing. Starting with our most recent read, The Birthmark, love is seen from two very different prospectives. First it is presented sort of like a challenge. Strive and fight for the best and receive your prize. Then we see it as a brainwashing tool. Love is a means to press your opinions and ideas onto those around you. In The Fall of the House of Usher, love is seen as a means to get what you want. However, as soon as what you want becomes unattainable love no longer has any importance. The Castle of Otranto is the only story that shows a slither of what love is really about through the relationship between the Matilda and Theodore, but even then it was kind of out shined by the warped presentation of love from Manfred to Isabella.

Aylmer, within The Birthmark, is truly a powerful example of the classical flawed protagonist, one who through his mistakes builds into a complex and believable human figure; his most outstanding flaw, by far, is the obsessive fallacy that we consider to be his improper priorities.

Throughout the story, as is incredibly common amongst Gothic protagonists, a forceful indignation towards the limitations and taunting nature of the mysteries of Nature around them cause them to spearhead ultimately fruitless campaigns to alter the grand design, which in the intense struggle to do so, completely consumes the central character from the genesis of frustration until they, in their unfathomable horror, realize the consequences of their crimes against the natural order.

This is the obsessive power which claims the focus of Aylmer; so great is his potency in man's early attempts of science that none may equal his command over that which he has discovered - yet despite his unparalleled success, his terrible crusade against the birthmark upon his gorgeous wife transforms into the tyrannical shape that he sees when he looks upon her - he does not see his fair and perfectly imperfect wife, but only the birthmark. He assesses it to be the luring, terrible taunt of Nature itself set to mock him, and the building lust to conquer the birthmark which costs him his angelic bride is a fruition of all his deadly sins against the order upon which we function, and as it always shall be within a Gothic, suffers in release from his obsession.

Notably evident as featured in any Gothic, there is a healthy sense detest for the old conventions of previous literary periods, which is plainly obvious by the flawed heroes and stark, terrible stories with grim endings.

One not as usually so duly noted yet still very important is the distaste for the picturesque state of marriage so developed in the Middle Ages, something to be mocked and picked apart into the burgeoning reality of character appearing in Gothic literature.

Such is well exemplified within The Birthmark; Aylmer's marriage is a dutiful thing; his claim to his wife is one of society's expectations, and physical attraction, rather than anything meaningful - he simply agreed that his massive success in the scientific fields of thought and experiment entitled him to a perfect woman.

Not only is this marriage an empty arraignment, but so too is his love hollow - as his obsession with triumphing over a simple mark consumes any chance at a true love to blossom for his wife - overbearing and running her to death with his own obsession, and without complaint from her; the idea of women being submissive was a cruel stereotype at the time, so by inclusion was a forwarding of a thought - that all the sum of the unjust, uncouth and unloving marriage was entirely for naught and just as the society and ideals that supported it, was ultimately doomed for their ignorance.

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.

Something all these stories share is an ever present problem of selfishness. There is always at least one character that cares for their needs first and foremost, with complete disregard for how they affect anyone else. In both The Fall of the House of Usher and The Castle of Otranto, the lead male is consumed by his want of another male heir. The Birthmark is more of a want for perfection in general, but a want nonetheless.

Something that really stuck out about the story The Birthmark is that the lead male had a obsession with perfection, but only outside of himself. Something always went wrong with his experiments, and he didn't finish all his studies. He only sought for perfection in indirect methods, thus not effecting himself.

The contrast between Aminadab and Aylmer is a classic juxtaposition of two related characters in a literary piece found throughout literature, but with heavy emphasis in the Gothic period; the humble, ugly character, and the proud, 'beautiful' character.

The general idea is that the 'beautiful' character has a high position either by appearance, social rank, or simple accomplishments (sometimes more than one is used, as in this case) that generally places them above the other character, who is usually deformed, poor, or generally considered mentally/completely inferior.

However, the part of the metaphorical scheme which comes into play here is what cements this classical device - the 'inferior' character character is just, or in some way piously humble in nature or wisdom, granting quiet wisdom to the 'superior' character when he truly needs it - he himself being haughty or entirely too stuck up or driven to acknowledge this advice. The advice or wisdom almost always goes ignored, and the 'superior' character is punished for this in the end or along the path, learning too late the value of the 'inferior' character's input.

This story, The Birthmark, really shines a light on just how pathetic and twisted the marriages of this time period were. Women were so brainwashed and degraded that the simple opinion of this woman's husband tilts her world and sends its spinning out of control. Her whole life Georgiana had been told that she was beautiful and that the small 'blemish' only adds to her beauty, but the moment her husband speaks unfavorable of it she second guesses her entire worth. This shows that females were not intended to have minds or opinions of their own, but to be completely dependent on their male counterparts.

The female is represented as a perfect being; however she has a “hand,” upon her face as a mark of her birth. She seems to be a submissive individual that will delve into anything her “loving,” husband wishes her to do. As a Gothic device, she is represented as in distress because she is continually overpowered by her tyrannical husband. In the end, her submissiveness nature is the reason she reaches her impending doom of death. When her spirit leaves her lifeless body, it is understood that she was an angel in a human form, yet released to be a being of Heaven once her imperfections were expelled from the flesh of her body.

The marriage of Aylmer and Georgiana is unhealthy. Georgiana thinks of Alymer as her master and Alymer is disgusted by Georgiana. Throughout marriage, couples are supposed to cooperate, even if it's only some of the time. Aylmer's and Georgiana's relationship starts out as a loving one, unfortunately, as soon as they marry Alymer starts to become obsessed with Georgiana's birthmark and is determined to remove it at all costs, even if that cost is Georgiana's life. In a marriage the couple is supposed to accept each other's flaws, they are supposed to support each other, and not risk each other's lives at the expense of there own insanity.Georgiana's birthmark was loved by all except the one person that mattered to her, Alymer.

Love (Profession vs. Human):

In the beginning, Aylmer had strong feelings towards science and his work but his feelings for Georgiana outweighed the former and so, he chose her over his work. But as the story progresses, he becomes more and more obsessed with the hand shaped birth mark on Georgiana's left cheek and soon "he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives." Thus, he began to search for a scientific way to rid her face of her birthmark. Once Aylmer started to search for cures and remedies, he fell back into that obsession he had previously towards his work.

The Birthmark is a Gothic work of literature and also can relate to other works of literature from that time period. Such as, The Castle of Otranto, there is a submissive woman under the tyranny of a male figure that seems to control every aspect of her life. Inexplicable events and omens also occur in this work of literature, such as the plant dying or when Georgiana discovers that the scientific studies conducted by her husband seemed mostly inconclusive, until he ran the experiments many more times to get the right result from all of the wrong ones, exemplifying that she will be the wrong outcome of the experiment. Also, her dream that her husband would cut out her heart happily just to get the mark upon her face to vanish is a vision of what is to come, foreshadowing her death and his success. The Castle of Otranto also had inexplicable events, such as the giant helmet crushing Manfred’s son, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner included Death and Life in Death as aspects of the dirty deed of killing a harmless bird.

Nature, the intrinsically woven basis within Gothic literature, generates a compulsory effect of containing the plot to an ingeniously similar, yet fresh in appearance, cyclical process of story and character development from beginning to completion of the climax.

Within The Birthmark, as with any Gothic composition, the main character either encounters or brings about something that defies Nature itself; whether this is a supernatural or scientific violation of Nature, it does not matter. What matters is that this event which violates a sacred balance in the cause of prideful and corrupt ambition, and for this, the character responsible suffers for his unfounded ambition - however, he is warned, in some form or another, of his ambition, before finding himself punished for this mistake.

As other people raved about the angelic hand print, Alymer had pleasant dreams of removing it from his wife’s body; no matter the risk he encountered, and no matter the possibility of her death. His obsession alludes to the theme of the story which is that science is a part of nature and cannot be used to counteract against it. Alymer did not truly love his wife, instead he loved the great challenge that her “defect” had presented him. He was successful in performing its removal, but he lost her in the process. Nature engraved that speck upon his wife’s perfect face. By removing it from her cheek, he simultaneously removed her from the world of the living. It is human nature to be curious and to test the limits of what is possible, but another part of humans are also crave companionship, and Alymer killed the woman who loved him more than she loved herself.

The elements of Marriage, Love(or lack thereof), and Nature are evident in The Birthmark. Alymer and Georgiana are newlyweds at the beginning of the work. They love each other very much, but Alymer has one tiny problem with Georgiana: the birthmark. Alymer tries to show his love for her but offering to remove the birthmark, which Georgiana agrees with, saying she'll do anything to make him happy. Alymer goes against the laws of Nature and tries to create his idea of a perfect wife by using Alchemy to achieve his goal. However, you can't go against the Law of Nature without incurring consequences, which Alymer realized after his wife's soul left her body and ascended to heaven.

In "The Birthmark," there seems to be a multitude of themes that are reoccurring to other Gothic literature. Themes such as a psychotic and obsessive male are prevalent in works including "Frankenstein," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "The Castle of Otranto," while a theme of morbidity and mortal actions influencing supernatural events is also prevalent in the three works of Gothic literature mentioned above. Other than the similarities of Gothic devices being thematic, yet another theme is occurring in "The Birthmark." As the scientist/husband becomes more involved in curing the deformity and blemish of Georgiana's flesh, the more she becomes submissive to his thoughts, thinking that her blemish is uglier than what he makes it seem. She becomes a sort of slave to his mind, whatever he outputs to her, she takes that comment or insult to heart and becomes less caring to whether she dies and more caring as to when the blemish will be fixed.

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The way that females are represented in "The Birhtmark" is picture-perfect, Georgiana is beautiful, confident and faithful. Georgiana starts out confident and so sure of herself. Every man around her thinks that she is this perfect, georeous, self-assured woman, and for a man in her world that was very appealing. When Georgiana got married she thought the world of Alymer, his opinion was the only that mattered, he was the only one that mattered. Georgiana was the perfect woman and for Alymer to think other wise is obsured.

Marriage seems to be an inevitable part of the plot that twists its way around the activities of certain characters and drives the story forward by causing some sort of issue in all the Gothic works we have read. The Birthmark represents marriage as an unequal relationship represented with a young female that being forced into an unwanted situation by a tyrannical male that will not rest until his own desires our fulfilled. Aylmer fights to remove the birthmark Georgiana has on her face, despite his wife specifically requesting the blemish to stay where God wished for it to be, and eventually his selfish desire leads to his wives untimely demise. Marriage no matter which particular work is involved some way in the death of a character or is needed in order to tell the story.

While today’s society looks upon scientific exploration in a good light the stories that we have read such as “Frankenstein” and “The Birthmark” look at it as something that shouldn’t be done. It’s apparent that the study of new things frightened people of those times as in the stories the “discoveries” lead to death. These deaths could represent the beliefs that people were losing as creations and discoveries in nature are made.

Something that should be pointed it out is that while the female in “The Birthmark” has what seems like only physical worth. She is described as having perfect beauty that is only intensified by the birthmark on her cheek while Frankenstein has a woman who is not only described as beautiful but as having wonderful morals and personality. It’s important to note that the work that has a woman only accredited for her beauty was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a man, while Frankenstein was written by Mary Shelley, a woman. The difference of the two shows that how women wished to be viewed differed greatly from how men actually viewed them.

As said before in The Ancient Mariner, The Castle of Otranto, and The Fall of the House of Usher seems that the work starts with the death of what seems like an unimportant character and then progresses the plot of the stories. The Birthmark is different than the three books above because as opposed to a death starting the story, death brings it to a close. All the devices that are typical of a gothic work lead up to science and change killing Georgiana as opposed to older views coming into play like the incestual relations and the arranged marriages.

It seems as if the birthmark tries to emphasize the way that science gets into a person’s head. One of the points that Hawthorne was probably trying to make would be the way that scientists get overly enthused with their projects and all of sudden their priorities are completely shattered. Instead of being focused some on his work and some on his wife, Aylmer became obsessed with being able to fix the birthmark placed on his otherwise beautiful wife’s cheek. The result of his obsession, the death of Georgiana, shows what people thought would happen if science was to continue advancing. The same thing happens to Victor Frankenstein’s priorities in “Frankenstein” and it results in the same thing: Death.

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.

"The Birthmark" provides a theme of respecting what is given to you. It is apparent throughout the text that the author wants the reader to feel the fear and uncertainty of science. More importantly is what comes at the end when the mysterious laughter is heard. The death of the scientist's wife comes from him trying to tamper with that of nature. He judges the creation that nature has blessed him with and he tried to improve on it. This lack of respect for that which already exists is evident throughout the text. The driving theme of this story is to respect that which is given to and not look to improve on it for your own selfish gain.

A theme that I find very evident is that of perfection. It is very very hard, perhaps impossible, to reach perfection in nature. The big theme in the story is that to achieve perfection means something will be taken or lost. In this case the wife died in the Scientist's pursuit in removing the mole or mark. What I really found to be interesting was that when she died she rose like an angel. Somewhere in the story is said she was perfect in every way except for the birthmark. Once the birthmark was removed perfection was achieved, but at the same time, she lost her life. When the author wrote she rose like an angel it is because the birthmark, her only flaw, had been removed thus rendering her perfect, like an angel.

Marriage plays a big role in this story. Together the scientist and the beautiful woman are happy. Its not until a short while after the marriage does the scientist realize the mark which begins to become irksome to him. He soon obsesses over removing, even dreaming that to get it out he must dig directly to her heart (which is a foreshadow to her death). They both see that men don't carry about the mark and that some would even kiss it but she doesn't care about them. She cares about what her husband thinks and only which to please him because of their bond by love. In the end when she is about to drink the potion she knows the risks, and in a defiance to life, she risks it all to make her husband happy, who in the end is, despite the melancholy death of the wife to the reader. All the scientist sees is that his potion worked and he succeed in removing the birthmark.

In the Birthmark nature is challenged. The scientist wishes to break the laws of nature by creating potions that can make one live forever or actually preform alchemy. The scientist pushed against the wall of nature, winning and losing. He succeed in removing the birthmark, which is what he cared about. Much more over her life. And, as the reader we see him lose, he loses his beautiful and nearly perfect wife. This story can relate to Frankenstein in that science can unlock so many answers but sometimes when a scientist pushes his desire for more he might find something he doesn't like. In the end of the Birthmark we see the scientist achieved in his quest, but we don't know what happened later. In Frankenstein Victor is so enticed by his work that only when he sees what monster he created does he reproach his work, cursing this monster he made. later when he believes that the creature killed his youngest brother it only makes him more angry and sad that he worked so hard for only making a catastrophe.

The wife in the story appears very respectful. She loves her husband and he (in a way) loves her back. I would say that during this time it was read, a woman should not obey and please their husbands at all costs. During the time this was written, society believed that a woman was meant to please their husband at all costs. I also found it interesting because there is a parallel identity between this story and The Castle of Otranto. When Georgiana dies she cries for her husband not to be sad by rejecting "the best the earth could offer". In Castle of Otranto Matilda is killed by her father and Manfred says, "I took thee for Isabella. Oh, canst thou forgive the blindness of my rage?" and Matilda responds saying she can and will.

In the Birthmark, the scientist loved his wife, but he loved science more. He had studied science for a long time and decided to get married. He couldn't accept her birthmark though. He wanted to get it off and the only way he thought possible was through science. He loved science for its master-key like form, unlocking door after door. He couldn't break away from science because it was him. He believed everything could be solved through its use. In the end his chooses the science over his wife, show a stronger affection for proving that his science was perfect, despite its repercussions on others.