Feminist Obsession In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, a short story is “an invented prose narrative shorter than a novel usually dealing with a few characters and aiming at unity of effect and often concentrating on the creation of mood rather than plot” (par. 1). Nathaniel Hawthorne was a famous writer on short stories who was born on July 4, 1804, in Salem, Massachusetts and died on May 19. One of his writings was The Birthmark written on March 1843. It is a short story that is about a scientist who is obsessed with an imperfection his wife holds, the mark that he considers as an imperfection on his wife is a small red hand on her cheek. He feels unsatisfied just by watching the mark on her cheek and his obsession becomes more visible through the …show more content…
Aylmer obsession grows with removing the mark, and Georgina finally accepts his husband desires to removing it that she ends dying after the procedure. Many of Hawthorne’s stories themes relate to science, an obsession that can turn in a feminist approach. Therefore, The Birthmark features a feminist approach into psychological themes by showcasing oppression to women with the pursuit of their perfection in the physical aspect, portraying stereotypes on how women should remain pure by failing in the natural state of a woman when married and how women should be submissive to her husband …show more content…
Aylmer’s desires to remove the mark was so intense, that she finally allowed her husband to conduct the experiment by putting in risk her own life for the sake of his approval. In the Norton Anthology of American Literature vol. B, in the story The Birthmark shows Georgiana’s dialog when she accepts the procedure, "let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust” (Hawthorne p.380). This quotes clearly portrays the role of submissiveness that Georgiana is taking. She was living in an environment where the only thing she was hearing was her husband desires to remove the mark that she got infected with the same hysteria of removing it, and claims that danger is nothing if she does not have his love by abandoning herself into her husband hands. The belief that a woman should be submissive to her husbands is feminist because it does not allow them to express their character and say what they really feel, getting to Georgiana's point of believing what the husband thinks is right and therefore she must think the

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Feminist Obsession In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark

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