A Feminist Approach to "The Birthmark"
Judith Fetterley, a feminist critic, declares that Hawthorne's story is secretly a story about feminism. She cites the sexual politics underneath the surface and Georgiana's apparent helplessless as evidence for her theory. A large portion of her article about the story is quoted in Michael Meyer's The Bedford Introduction to Literature. "It is not irrelevant that 'The Birthmark' is about a man's desire to perfect his wife, nor is it accidental that the consequence of this idealism is the wife's death." (Fetterley qtd. Meyer 437)
Fetterley argues that this story would not work the other way around, if Georgiana were the scientist desperately seeking the perfection of her husband, Aylmer, who was endlessly submissive to her (437). Georgiana's place as a woman, and moreover as a woman in the role of a wife, is critical to the functionality of the story. Without the traditional gender roles, the story would fail to work as it does.
Fetterley adds that the way Georgiana is treated throughout the story demonstrates that she is being objectified. Her physical beauty and her one physical flaw become her definition, so she can only achieve perfection as a physical object (438). |
"Georgiana is an exemplum of woman as beautiful object, reduced to and defined by her body." (438) Fetterley's reading of the story is interesting, albeit a little tunnel-visioned. She lays so much emphasis on the character of Georgiana and the sexual dynamics of the story that the other two characters and the myriad other thematic nuances present are overlooked. The points made about the position of gender roles in the story are, nonetheless, significant and add another layer of complexity to the story by offering insight into the relationship between the central couple.
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