Is science a blessing or a curse? Judging from Nathaniel Hawthorne's two stories, "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" and "The Birthmark," science is a curse posing as a blessing. This paper will discuss both stories as well as an example from real life to support its conclusion that science is a curse that only pretends to be a blessing.
In "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," the doctor invites several old friends back from the grave and invites them to drink water from the fountain of youth. He first demonstrates the water's abilities by putting a dried-up old rose in it and showing them how the water restores the rose, so they eagerly drink it. They feel the rush of youth come back, and they begin acting as they did when much younger, although the mirror nearby tells the true story-they are still just as old as ever. Even worse, the effects of the water last only a short time, and they soon feel old age creeping back upon them. Science has promised to make them younger, but it has only given them a temporary feeling of youth. Now that the feeling is gone, they want it back so desperately that they are willing to travel to Florida so that they can drink it morning, noon, and night. They are completely unaware that they are still as old and decrepit as before.
In "The Birthmark," Aylmer is distracted by his wife's little hand-shaped birthmark. Although she is otherwise beautiful, for him the hand is too distracting, and he feels that it destroys what would be perfect beauty without it. Therefore, he is resolved to get rid of it, and she is so wounded by his feeling that it mars her beauty that she is willing to undergo any treatment to get rid of it, even if it causes her death. Aylmer finds too late that in the process of removing the hand, he is killing his wife, and as the hand disappears, she dies. He has lost all for the sake of correcting a minor flaw.
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