Analysis
Like many of the tales Hawthorne wrote during his time living in The Old Manse, "The Birth-Mark" discusses the psychological impact in sexual relations. The birthmark does not become an issue to Aylmer until after the marriage, which he suddenly sees as sexual: "now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again, and glimmering to-and-fro with every pulse of emotion". Written shortly after Hawthorne married Sophia Peabody, the story emphasizes the husband's sexual guilt disguised as superficial cosmetology. Some critics contend that the theme of the story is that human perfection can only be achieved in death and therefore not reachable at all, in that the trademark foreshadowing occurred during Aylmer's dream of cutting out the mark, in which he discovers the birthmark is connected to Georgiana's heart (which he elects to cut out as well in his attempt to remove the birthmark). Other critics, like Stephen Youra suggest that, to Aylmer, the birthmark represents the flaws within the human race which includes "original sin" which "woman has cast men into" and because of this, elects it as the symbol of his wife's "liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death". While others suggest we view the story "as a story of failure rather than as the success story it really is — the demonstration of how to murder your wife and get away with it."
Hawthorne may have been criticizing the epoch of reform in which he was living and specifically calling attempts at reform ineffective and the reformers as dangerous. Other critics read the story as a critique of 19th century positivist science (positivism) situating the woman as nature and representing science as attempting to penetrate her/its secrets while ultimately destroying the object of its research. Still others see it as a defense of vitalism as against materialism – that one cannot find the essence or soul in mute bodily matter.
The story is often compared to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Oval Portrait".
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