Happiness is an ideal emotion that everyone wants to feel and will do anything to achieve. If you want to explore the facets of how important it is for people to achieve happiness, you will have to put yourself in the shoes of the main characters in Nathaniel Hawthorne's stories "The Birthmark" and "Wakefield". Stories help people understand that the need for happiness is essential, but that actually achieving that happiness in real life is much harder to achieve unless you actively pursue 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 a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayAylmer believes that perfection is the only thing that can make him happy, so he highlights the birthmark on his wife, Georgiana, as the object of his disappointment that must be removed to make her perfect. He says that Georgiana “…came so almost perfect from the hand of Nature that this least possible flaw, which we hesitate whether to call a flaw or a beauty, shocks me, as the visible sign of earthly imperfection” (Hawthorne 2). The imperfect birthmark clouds Aylmer's mind with so much disappointment that he believes his happiness can only come from its removal. His disappointment leads him to view his wife more as an object he wants to improve rather than as 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 Georgiana's beauty, both of soul and sense, had given him joy” (Hawthorne 3). He is allowing his disappointment to 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 how far people are willing to go to be happy. The need to remedy the disappointment experienced by Aylmer is also evident in how Wakefield believes that walking away from home to observe his wife's actions will cure his disappointment of not knowing whether or not, he is faithful. Wakefield fears that if his wife suspected that he was dead or that he had left her, “…you would be sadly aware of a change in your true wife forever” (Hawthorne 3). He is disappointed by his pessimistic outlook on what he thinks will happen while he is gone. His purpose in leaving his home is to relieve his disappointment and become happy. While Wakefield is away, 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 causes him to undertake the archetypal task of testing his wife's faithfulness to their marriage and creating happiness for himself. The disappointment he feels comes from the fact that he doesn't know his wife's level of dedication and the only way he thinks he can be happy is by leaving her and studying her. As seen, happiness is worth seeking out disappointing things in order to correct them and become happy, however, happiness is also worth the personal consequences that can arise from efforts to make oneself happy. Aylmer in “The Birthmark” considers the possibility of his happiness more important than the consequences he might experience in the weakening of his relationship with his wife as a result of him seeking only her happiness and not hers. When it comes to the relationship between Aylmer and Georgiana, the story says that Aylmer may be interested in his wife's love, but that "...it may only be by intertwining with his love of science and combining the strength of the latter with its"(Hawthorne 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 with genuine care and concern. His attitude towards the birthmark shows the ideal of Nature versus the Mechanistic World because his intentions are to scientifically modify his wife to make her more attractive to him. Aylmer realizes that he didn't know how important the removal of the birthmark was to him and the "... lengths he could find in his heart to go forward for the sake of giving himself peace" (Hawthorne 4). The hamartia of selfishness that Aylmer has rears its ugly head when the reader can see that he wants to remove the birthmark more for personal content rather than concern for his wife's beauty. The consequence that Aylmer experiences is that the bond of his love with Georgiana weakens and, for him, it turns into a more superficial relationship to make himself happy. The superficiality of Aylmer's marital relationship is present in Wakefield's long absence from his wife to investigate her loyalty, causing him to experience the consequence of being alienated from society as a whole. As Wakefield walks, he disguises himself and walks bent over face down, “…As if he would not show his whole façade to the world” (Hawthorne 5). As a result of Wakefield's closure to the outside world and his confinement from his personal life, he becomes the archetypal Outcast because he is forgotten and unnoticed by society. This feeling of insignificance governs his temperament and makes it more attractive to remain isolated and antisocial rather than trying to fit back into the recognition of people. In his solitude, Wakefield managed to “…renounce 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 due to his self-exile from it. The consequences experienced are worth the pursuit of happiness, however, the possibility of the loss of something important to the characters is a much more serious prospect that is rated as less important than the pursuit of happiness. Aylmer's dedication to his personal goal 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 “...The parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took flight to heaven” (Hawthorne 14). The risk of harm being done to Georgiana was repelled and outweighed by the happiness Aylmer desired to have and his unshakeable faith in scientific experimentation. He let his arrogance hide his fear for Georgiana's well-being and the situational irony of her dying after her procedure was successful was not something he was prepared for. Georgiana's death was too much for him to bear and "...He could not look beyond the dark scope of time and, living once and for all in eternity, find the perfect future in the present" (Hawthorne 14) . Aylmer is gripped by so much disbelief and grief over what he has caused that he has no hope for his future. The risk of Aylmer losing Georgiana was not as important as his happiness, but his plans to be happy forever failed when what he thought impossible became reality. Aylmer's plans to be happy failed badly, however, in Wakefield's case he lost 20 years of his life. but he decided it was more important for that to happen than to risk the sadness that comes with the possibility.