The Birthmark



The Birthmark

A parable of the mad scientist story, Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" characterizes the ruin of the romantic ideal. The story was first issued in the Pioneer in 1843, and was published that same year in a collection, Mosses from an Old Manse. The parable is an allegory of dominance through forceful personality, subverted will, and masculine superiority, with overtones of Female gothic. The gothic narrative depicts the beautiful bride Georgiana in the hands of her possessive husband Aylmer, a perverter of science. Because of his longing for perfection in a mate, he is driven to expunge from Georgiana's cheek a superficial hand-shaped stain, her only unattractive feature (Ellis, 2001). Passing from hurt feelings to anger, she charges, "You cannot love what shocks you!"; yet, under his influence, she gradually comes to detest the birthmark as much as Aylmer does.

The book birthmark is written by Sandra Patton is the sociologist and the critical thinker she has written this book by to study the Trans racial adoption by the parents in America. She has raised the question that profoundly vexing and divisive question about cultural, biological, social, and political status of identity that displays an unusual blend of empathy, sociological wisdom, and expressiveness in the book. Patton in Birthmarks demonstrated how is it possible that there could be no such thing like color-blind family or adoption policy as long as the color lines remain an obstinate American dilemma. If any person who cares about the alteration contours of the family and race today must analyze the book (Patton, 2000).

The story should be read in the context of science and technology at the end of the 18th century, which was assuming, as Melissa Pennell puts it, more "dominant roles" in American life than religion. Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein had explored ...