The Birth Mark Essay

901 WordsNov 23, 20144 Pages
Hawthorne/ The Birth-Mark Human curiosity has a transformative effect. It is this curiosity which has lead man from a primitive state to the intellectual state of modern man. Science can be considered the discipline of using human curiosity to understand the world in which humans live. Furthermore scientist are those who practice this discipline to unlock the secrets of the universe. In the text The Birthmark, the reader is introduced to the main character Aylmer. Aylmer is a scientist whose love of science is unmatched until he meets and marries Georgiana. But because of his desire to control nature and remedy imperfections, his wife Georgiana meets a tragic end. The text casts Aylmer in a negative light. However there are other attributes to consider when analyzing Aylmer’s character. To analyze Aylmer’s character we must consider what a scientist is, what role a scientist plays, and what it means to be a scientist. To delve deeper it is important to understand what a scientist is. The formal definition of a scientist is “a person learned in science and especially natural science”(merriam-webster) and further the definition of science is “knowledge about or study of the natural world based on facts learned through experiments and observation”(merriam-webster) which both imply a greater sense of knowledge than the average person. With this knowledge supposedly comes greater understanding. Aylmer meets this criteria as a man who engages in scientific study and who has made incredible discoveries. Scientist thrive on human curiosity and have the innate nature to question why and how things work. This curiosity is neutral in concept but can be seen as beneficial or benign dependent upon the implementation. An example of this can be seen through the experiments conducted by Nazi war scientist; selected inmates were subjected to various hazardous

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