Literary Criticism Of The Birthmark

The more I got to read “The Story of an Hour”, “Desiree’s baby”, “The Birthmark”, and “The Cask of Amontillado” , the more I start having a sickness in my heart, but thanks God these stories are not real. In fact, the cruel events might not happened to Mrs. Mallard, Desiree, Georgiana, or Fortunato. However, it was a reality for some people at that time, both history and author’s style of thinking prove it. Historically speaking, we know for a fact that struggle, racism, women abuse, and crimes were very common back in the 19th Century. Moreover, by reading those stories we can react and feel differently, we tend to be more sensitive and emotional about the hardships and oppression faced by characters especially women and non-white people. By analyzing “The Birthmark” written by Nathaniel Hawthorne we can feel what Georgiana had to go through. It is very important to analyze Aylmer’s relationship with his wife

Aylmer says “Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature” (Hawthorne). The author is referring to God through nature, it is noticeable that every word “Nature” in this story starts with a capital word. God is symbolized in the story as Nature. So Aylmer was not satisfied with God’s creation, neither grateful to it. He sees Georgiana’s birthmark as an earthly imperfection. He wants her to be perfect, literally like an angel. Aylmer’s arrogance left him blind, so he decided to take the situation on his hands, by challenging Nature. He tries to do so by any way possible, but he knew somewhere deep in his heart that it would leads to some consequences: Death of Georgiana. The foreshadowing was clear since the beginning of the story, through Aylmer’s dream. The reader was not really surprised by Georgiana’s death. The moral of the story is that husbands were ready to do everything they could just to satisfy their own desires and elevates their reputation among the