The Perception Of A Girl In The Birthmark By Nathaniel Hawthorne

the perception of a girl in terms of a traditional setting by portraying instructions of 

behaviour and responsibility expectations of young ladies by comprising the duties anticipated. 

The story consists of a theme that suggests there is a particular way for women to conduct

themselves, reinforcing the idea of women having to be domestic. This leads to feminism through

the things women are presumed to do for the satisfaction of others, an example of this is, cleaning 
 
the whole house, perhaps looking good while doing so? This is also evident in the story of The 

Birthmark. Hawthorne’s dark romanticism story mainly focuses on his belief of science, nature and 

religion. It illustrates how the attempt of changing a human being to your
idea of perfection is

foolish. We see that in The Birthmark, in order for Aylmer to achieve and satisfy his desire of 

removing the hand-shaped mark on his wife’s left cheek using science, he must be playing God.

Indeed, due to the attempt of this strive, at the end, he is severely punished for it through the death

of his wife. Georgiana is treated in a way that demonstrates her being objectified throughout the

story. She was defined through her, apparently, one physical flaw. The story also shows the

powerlessness of women and the result or the affect is has on them when they are viewed as an

object to be perfected; this is seen when Georgiana’s attitude changes towards her birthmark

which was seen as perfection and beauty to those who loved her. Therefore, we can conclude that

in Girl, the daughter is instructed on how she should act by doing the things which

are labelled as feminine; such as walking in a certain way. Additionally, it is also the fact that the 

female has to do all the “traditional feminine roles” such as cleaning, ironing, setting the table and 

preparing food. Nathaniel Hawthorne also contributed to the theme of feminism by giving the idea 

that the way women see themselves is in the hands of the men involved in their lives, through his

story The Birthmark.

Likewise, the imposition of perfectionism is seen in both the stories. Commonly, there is a 

character who is under the influence of having to be perfect in the eyes of the other(s). They both

contain characters that are being imposed ideas of how they should look or become, and thence 

they become (in The Birthmark) or are prone to (in Girl) becoming manipulated. In the story Girl, 

although, we are uncertain of who the narrator is, assuming it is the mother, she keeps giving the 

daughter orders and reproaching her of being bent on becoming a slut, almost unaware of the 

daughter’s presence, not allowing her to speak, and when she does retort that she is wrongly 

portrayed, she is ignored. Both the characters, Georgiana and the daughter, are under the 

pressure of following up and obeying certain demands to, hopefully, be viewed as perfect. In Girl, 

the mother wants the daughter to be a perfectionist in every aspect of life; which include washing, 

cooking, sewing, ironing, cleaning and even at performing an abortion(“this is how to make a good 

medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child.) In the process of attempting to 

raise her daughter well, she yet fails by not taking into consideration the thoughts and the feelings 

of her daughter. This, also, gives the reader the opportunity to feel the agony and stress the 

daughter is going through, especially through the language of the mother, which automatically 

makes us think that the tone she was using towards her daughter was harsh and rushed. 

Moreover, she also advices her on how to handle and make relationships, to be aware of the 

opposite gender and not be afraid to end the relationship. Now the bright side of that, is that it 

helps for the future of the daughter, in spite of being treated as a slave. Nonetheless, all the 

instructions told could result to failure, perhaps a failure similar to the one presented in The 

Birthmark - others see it as great to being an independent woman, but the mother sees it as a flaw, 

similar to the situation of the mark on the wife’s cheek on other’s perspective.
It could also be a 

negative influence on the girl. In expansion to that, the words of her mother could be scarred deep 

enough in the daughter’s mind to put her in a state of fear of experiencing the roller-coaster of life. 

In like manner, in The Birthmark, Aylmer’s itch of satisfaction is to make his wife perfect. However, 

that is doomed to failure as, perfection, suggested by Nathaniel, is the province of heaven and not 

found on Earth. Not only did his failure result to the death of Georgiana, but it also ruined Aylmer 

as a husband and scientist, because his desire to make his wife into the way he assumed is ideal, 

became what prevented him from seeing the good in his wife which we learnt from when her little 

flaw grew in his mind and, eventually, took over, making him unable to see the good in his wife. In 

addition to the story Girl, the mother, at the beginning of the story, questions her daughter if it is 

true that she had sung benna(used as a symbol) in Sunday school, this makes the reader think 

that the mother had either heard or was told this from someone. On top of that, it creates the 

question of wether or not the daughter has already turned into the opposite of what her mother 

intended
for: a slut. Both this, and the failure of perfection in The Birthmark brings me to the 

conclusion that, forcing someone to become perfect is ultimately impossible and that nature, is 

indeed, more powerful. 

Furthermore, the story Girl, is just one long sentence with each demand is separated by semi 

colons. The long sentences in stream of consciousness style show the desperation and aggression 

of the mother. Jamaica Kincaid uses this to convey the theme and tone(obedience and 

repressiveness), which also helps build up suspense and interest to where the next leading of the 

story will take place. The word choices and structure style makes it more like a prose poem. It 

consists of rhythm and amplifications of repetition. A lot of the sentences start with “this” continuing 

on to repeating words also within and at the end of sentences.
Parallelism is found as well through 

the sentences beginning with “don’t”(use of anaphora) or “you mustn’t” and then using simple 

imperative verbs or word such as “be sure to” or “always.” Judging by repetition of instructions, and 

the jump of the sentences sometimes being negative and on to positive, makes Girl 

incremental, which confuses the reader and makes it more difficult to understand. In opposition to 

that, Birthmark is more linear than incremental, even though his style of writing is outdated, it is 

simpler and slower to read. This might also be for the reason that we have a narrator, a conflict(not 

being into the birthmark and wanting to remove it) and a plot, unlike in Girl. 

In contrast to the The Birthmark in which we are fed with in depth details of things, like the setting, 

characters, and the mark, as well as an example of imagery, metaphor and allusion in the first 

paragraph of the story where the fie enters the boudoir, the story of Girl lacks description of either 

the setting or characters. However, throughout the story, we are able to hint out for ourselves, for 

example, I puzzled it out by the details supplied in reference to “benna” and “dasteem”. Also 

noticed by things like the food, and having to do the laundry by hand. Kincaid uses the technique of 

allowing the reader to use their
imagination.

In a nutshell, we found that in both stories, there is a dominant and a subordinate character. Both 

of the dominant characters are eager to turn their loved ones into their ideal being, meaning, as 

flawless as possible, unilaterally. In Girl, it focused on how the girl must behave and be aware of 

what should and should not be done in order to avoid being a slut, whilst having her interests and 

the matter of education ignored, two essential factors to a teenager. In The Birthmark, Aylmer only 

cares about the hand-shaped mark on Georgiana’s cheek and does not take her feelings into 

thought. Although the flow and style of writing is clearly different, in my opinion, Girl’s style of 

writing is more effective as it is unique and interesting.