Science v. Religion

            In the pursuit of science there is often a debate over ethics. Should science be allowed to correct what it determines to be nature's mistake? Is it alright to undo Gods Work? In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark Alymer decides to do just that. Aylmer is scientist/physician that marries the beautiful Georgiana. Georgiana has a tiny birthmark in the shape of a hand on her cheek. Shortly after their marriage he asks her if she had ever thought of removing it. When she tells him that she saw it as a beauty mark, he tells her that in a lesser person it would be, but on her it just hinders perfection. He then begins the quest to find a remedy for her flaw which leads to her death. Through examination of character analysis, symbols and imagery the reader will see, an idea that often appears in Hawthorne's work, science is immoral nature and it is dangerous to use it to correct nature.
             Georgiana was a devoted faithful wife that lived to please her husband. When she learned that the mere mention of her birthmark troubled her husband it began to distress her as well. "At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a red hot iron had touched her cheek."(p.125). She was so devoted to her husband's happiness above her own that she preferred to die then to annoy him. In contrast, Aylmer wanted perfection. He could no longer love his wife because she was flawed. His love of science clouded his judgment and made him incapable of pure love. This is why he had to fix her. He became obsessed with the need to complete her perfection, resulting in her death and another scientific failure for him. .
             Georgiana first begins to detest the birthmark after hearing a dream of her husbands. In the dream he envisions himself operating on her birthmark as it sinks deeper into her eventually ending at her heart where he removes it anyway , which killed her. Hawthorne uses this dream to show the reader what the results of altering nature could be.