A scientist named Aylmer got married to an 'almost perfect' woman. He is obsessed with perfection, and cannot stand the hand-shaped birthmark on her cheek. She is so near perfect, he can't stand the way it ruins her face. Other men have liked it and found it special, which is why she never thought to remove it. Seeing his disgust of the birthmark makes her soon hate it too. She rather die than continue to live with the birthmark ("Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life!"). After her fainting episode, he is intent to get rid of the birthmark. She finds his book of experiment recordings and later finds out he had been doing experiments on her the whole time. When she goes into the laboratory and finds him and Aminadab working on something (probably for the next experiment), he tests a liquid planned to rid of the birthmark on a plant, it got rid of the spots on the plant. She drank the liquid and the mark started to disappear. He thought the experiment was successful, but she started dying as the hand faded.
The relation in theme between the Crucible and The Birthmark, is the obsession of perfection. Anything odd or different is looked down upon and cast out. Salem tries to rid of its impurities (the witches) as Aylmer tries to rid of his wife's impurity (the birthmark). Both attempts to "purify" resulted in tragedy. In the Crucible hundreds of innocent people are killed, in the Birthmark Aylmer loses his wife. Both thoughts of imperfection were relative. Others thought Georgiana's birthmark only added to her beauty, Aylmer thought the opposite. His obsession with perfection ruined his life, as the obsession with perfection ruined Salem village.
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