The Birthmark shows allegory meaning the characters are symbols that represent something. For an example, Alymer is what a dependent mind might be and the dangers of scientists. He believes that the world is flawless; that everything is perfect. His obsession with perfection got worse when he married Georgina. The small birthmark on her cheek made Alymer so desperate to remove it. He thinks about it a lot, “With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped.” It
