Happiness is an ideal emotion that everyone wants to feel and will go to desperate measures to achieve it. If we want to explore the facets of the importance of happiness for people, we will have to put ourselves in the place of the main characters through the main characters of Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories “The Birthmark” and “Wakefield”. Stories help people understand that the need for happiness is essential, but that it is much more difficult to achieve that happiness in real life unless you actively seek it. The stories' main characters, Aylmer and Wakefield, believe that self-inflicted disappointment, personal consequences, and risk of loss are worth it if the end result is happiness. Say no to plagiarism. Get Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original EssayAylmer believes that perfection is the only thing that can make him happy, which is why he highlights the birthmark of his wife, Georgiana, as an object of his disappointment that must be eliminated to make her perfect. He says that Georgiana “…is so close to the perfection of the hand of nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate to call a flaw or beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection” ( Hawthorne 2). The imperfect birthmark clouds Aylmer's mind with such disappointment that he believes his happiness can only result from its removal. His disappointment leads him to view his wife more as an object he wishes to improve rather than someone he truly cares about. Aylmer begins to believe that the birthmark is a sign of evil, "...causing him more trouble and horror than ever before." Georgiana’s beauty, whether spiritual or sensory, had given him pleasure” (Hawthorne 3). He lets his disappointment turn into a fear that divides his marital relationship and closes his mind to the true beauty that his wife embodies. The aspect of induced disappointment affects the efforts people will make to be happy. The need to remedy the disappointment Aylmer experiences is also evident in the way Wakefield believes that stepping away from home to observe his wife's actions will cure his disappointment in not knowing whether or not she is faithful. Wakefield fears that if his wife suspected him of death or that he had left her, “…you would be dreadfully conscious of a change in your true wife forever” (Hawthorne 3). He is disappointed by his pessimistic view of what he thinks will happen while he is gone. His only purpose in leaving home is to alleviate his disappointment and become happy. While Wakefield is gone, he watches his wife to see how she “…will bear her widowhood of a week…” (Hawthorne 3). Hawthorne creates doubt in Wakefield's mind and leads him to undertake the archetypal task of testing his wife's fidelity to their marriage and creating happiness for himself. The disappointment he experiences comes from not knowing his wife's level of devotion and the only way for him to be happy is to leave her and study her. As we see, happiness is worth seeking out the things that are disappointing in order to correct them and become happy, however, happiness is also worth the personal consequences that may arise as a result of efforts to make oneself happy. Aylmer in “The Birthmark” believes that the possibility of his happiness is more important than the consequences he might suffer if his relationship with his wife weakens because he only seeks her happiness and not his own. . When speaking of the relationship between Aylmer and Georgiana, the story says that Aylmer may care about his wife's love, but that "...it could notbe only by intertwining with his love of science, and by uniting the strength of the latter with his own.” (Hawthorn 1). This perspective of Aylmer's motivation to remove the birthmark makes it seem like he is treating Georgiana more like a science experiment rather than acting out of genuine care and concern. His attitude towards the birthmark presents the ideal of nature against the mechanistic world because his intentions are to scientifically modify his wife to make her more attractive to him. Aylmer realizes that he did not know how important removing the birthmark was to him and the “…efforts he could find in his heart to give himself peace” (Hawthorne 4). Aylmer's hamartia of selfishness rears its ugly head when the reader can see that he wants to remove the birthmark more for personal reasons than out of concern for his wife's beauty. The consequence that Aylmer experiences is that the bond of his love with Georgiana weakens and, for him, turns into a more superficial relationship to make himself happy. The superficiality of Aylmer's marital relationship is present in Wakefield's prolonged absence from his wife to investigate her loyalties, causing him to suffer the consequences of being alienated from society at large. As Wakefield walks, he disguises himself and walks hunched over with his face lowered, “…as if he did not want to show his whole face to the world” (Hawthorne 5). Due to Wakefield's exclusion from the outside world and his isolation from his personal life, he becomes the archetypal outcast because he is forgotten and unnoticed by society. This feeling of insignificance governs one's temperament and makes it more attractive to remain isolated and antisocial than to try to reintegrate oneself into people's recognition. In his solitude, Wakefield managed to “…abandon his place and privileges among living men, without being admitted among the dead” (Hawthorne 6). He reaches the point where he is dead to the world because of his self-exile. The consequences experienced make it worth pursuing happiness, however, the possibility of losing something important to the characters is a much more serious prospect that is considered less important than finding happiness. Aylmer's dedication to his personal goal The idea of ​​achieving happiness by removing his wife's birthmark goes awry when she dies from the procedures she underwent. After the birthmark was removed and Aylmer began to celebrate his perfect wife, Georgiana announced that she was dying, shattering Aylmer's happiness when "...Woman's Farewell Breath now perfect has passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering for a moment near her. husband, took flight to heaven” (Hawthorne 14). The risk of Georgiana being harmed was discounted and counterbalanced by the happiness Aylmer wanted to have and by his unwavering confidence in scientific experimentation. He let his pride mask his fear of Georgiana's well-being and the irony of the situation of her death after the success of her procedure was not something he was prepared for. Georgiana's death was too much for him to bear and “…he failed to look beyond the dark reach of time and, living once and for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present” (Hawthorne 14). Aylmer is so disbelieving and so grief-stricken by what he has caused that he has no hope for his future. The risk of Aylmer losing Georgiana was not as great as his happiness, but his plans to always be happy backfired when what he considered impossible became a reality. Aylmer's plans to be happy backfired severely,..