Imagery and "The Birthmark"

The use of imagery in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, is profound. The most obvious use of imagery is the visual description of the birthmark on Georgiana’s left cheek. Not only do we get a good visual of it, but we also get a good idea of the significance of it. The birthmark is crimson and shaped like a tiny human hand. This gives a visual image of it. Then Hawthorne go on to blatantly tell what the birthmark means to Aylmer, “The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death”. There is also good use of imagery at Aylmer’s laboratory. In one room, Georgiana’s boudoir, it is “an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance” and “The scene around her looked like enchantment”. Then, in the very next room, where Aylmer did his work, was described in a manner that gives the image of a dirty, well used, industrious scene and the smell of science; a chemical smell. The use of the imagery is mostly used to give readers abstract ideas. Aylmer, as a scientist, was a perfectionist. The birthmarks actual looks did not have as much bearing on the story as did the fact that Georgiana would have been perfect if not for one mistake by the creator. This mistake was not acceptable for Aylmer and he had to correct it. The birthmark is a symbol of mans imperfection as well as pursuit of perfection.