Nathaniel Hawthorne was a part of the American Romantic movement (1830-1860), more specifically the Dark Romantic (or Gothic). Romantics, and their texts, tended to idealize the individual, the imagination, the emotional, and the exotic. Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" is representative of the period based upon the imagery and themes of the text.
Georgiana's birthmark represents two very different things: mortality/imperfection and original sin. Both of these ideas speak to the thoughts of the Romantic. Imperfection makes...