“The Birthmark” is a short story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1843 and “The Yellow Wallpaper” is a short story written by Charlotte Perkins-Gilman published in 1892. “The Birthmark” deals with a husband’s determination to make his wife look perfect while “The Yellow Wallpaper” deals with the subordination of a woman to her husband which drives her crazy. Both Georgiana and the wife from “The Yellow Wallpaper” are trapped in a marriage in which their husbands are dominant and who determine their fate.
The similarities between “The Birthmark” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” are related to the fact that the women have to listen to their dominant husbands who are both doctors and know much about natural philosophy. They are capable of treating patients, but they are not capable of taking care of their wives. That is why both of the stories end tragically with Georgiana dying and with the wife from “The Yellow Wallpaper” losing her mind completely. Both men believe in science and love for science prevails over the love they feel for their wives. The men seem to be selfish and they only want to prove themselves to be exquisite scientists who know what is best for their wives. This is the wrong approach since the condition of the wives worsens instead of improving.
Georgiana is a woman who values her husband’s opinion more than anything and she begins to resent her birthmark because of him. She feels great same for having it and she covers it every time her husband is nearby. The birthmark is exceptional: “To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face” (Hawthorne). The birthmark seems to have its own character and some people are attracted to it and believe that this makes Georgiana even more beautiful, while others believe that it corrupts her beauty. Her husband is a vain scientist who wants the birthmark removed by his own hand so that his wife would really be perfect. On the other hand, the doctor’s wife in “The Yellow Wallpaper” does not trust her husband and she continues to write in spite of John’s forbidding her to do that. She says: “Personally, I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good” (Perkins Gilman 648). Her sister-in-law, Jane takes care of her while John is at work and she can manipulate her. Georgiana does not manipulate anybody and she does everything her husband tells her to do because she is an obedient woman. When he mentions how much her birthmark bothers him, she says: “Then why did you take me from my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks you!” (Hawthorne). She is an obedient wife who values her husband’s opinion more than her own and she is ready to die should the removal of the birthmark be a failure. The two women are completely dependent on their husbands and they suffer severely because of that. Georgiana begins to hate her birthmark as much as Aylmer, her husband, and John’s wife develops a mental illness because of her husband’s treatment in which she feels oppression.
The difference between the stories lies in the fact that Georgiana listens to her husband and eventually dies, while John’s wife chooses a self-destructive path because she eventually goes completely mad by identifying herself with the woman she allegedly sees captured in the wallpaper. In “The Birthmark”: “a husband sacrifices his wife’s life for the sake of erasing a birthmark, which he feels to be the only thing standing between her and perfection” (Weinstein 46). This is degrading towards Georgiana because her birthmark is the one thing that makes her unique and accentuates her beauty. However, she begins to feel unworthy of her husband once she accepts his point of view. John’s wife has a different situation: “Before her attention becomes focused on the wallpaper, the narrator attempts to grasp her situation by naming the kind of place in which she finds herself as well as the kind of place in which she would like it to be” (Haney-Peritz 115). Therefore, John’s wife, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” has different wishes than her husband even though she has to listen to him since she does not feel well and is secluded in the rented house during the summer. While Georgiana adopts her husband’s way of thinking, the narrator of “The Yellow Wallpaper” never changes her mind and thinks that she could arrange her life in a better way. The “Birthmark” is the symbol of imperfection in Aylmer’s eyes and “The Yellow Wallpaper” is the symbol of the world in which the doctor’s wife lives and from which she wishes to escape. Both women are trapped and one finds escape in death after reaching perfection, while the other escapes by becoming mad.
The “Birthmark” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” represent the world in which men are dominant, but where feminism is still present. The husbands are scientists, but they are not omnipotent as they believe and science fails them. The wives are obedient, but their true personalities are revealed throughout the stories because both women become aware of the situations in which their husbands put them. The husbands are described as insensitive and their selfishness costs them dearly.
Works Cited
Gilman Perkins, Charlotte. The Yellow Wallpaper. United States: The New England Magazine, 1892. Print.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birthmark." The Literature Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 May 2016. <http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/125/>.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental feminism and literature's ancestral house: Another look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper'." Women's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113-28. Web. 25 May 2016.
Weinstein, Cindy. "The Invisible Hand Made Visible: "The Birth-Mark"." Nineteenth-Century Literature 48.1 (1993): 44-73. Print.
