What appears at first to be a simple story of human error, Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story 'The Birthmark', implies a much deeper and darker when you look closer. A relatively short story, it details an event in the lives of Aylmer and Georgiana, a recently married couple. Georgiana has a birthmark on her cheek that repels Aylmer more and more as time goes by. When he confronts her about it, she tells him that it's part of his charm, but Aylmer begins to react so violently that Georgiana finally agrees to give him a chance to kidnap her. He spends a few days in the lab with her and removes the birthmark, but also removes her soul from the earth, she dies when the birthmark is gone. This story is adorned with details that support its label as a “dark romantic tale.” To see the story in the right light, you need to understand what dark romanticism is. Black Romantic writers believed that humans were prone to sin. The human race is not always endowed with divinity and wisdom. Second, they represented evil in their stories with supernatural characters; ghost...