Feminist Themes in "The Birthmark" and "A Rose for Emily"

Introduction: A Feminist Framework

Judith Fetterley's feminist criticism provides a powerful lens through which to read both Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." Fetterley observes that a reader approaching "A Rose for Emily" must struggle "to use it on Homer, so strong is the presumption that ladies when jilted commit suicide, not murder" (Fetterley 41). This observation points to one of the central tensions in both stories: the way in which women are expected to be passive victims rather than agents of their own fate. Both texts reward a feminist critical reading that exposes the mechanisms by which male authority figures diminish, control, and ultimately destroy the women in their lives.

Aylmer's Obsession and Georgiana's Victimization

The imperfection found on the face of Georgiana is symbolic of any perceived defect that a man might find in a woman. The underlying importance of this mark resides in Aylmer's obsession with that defect — he is so consumed by it that he can focus on nothing else. He associates the birthmark not only with physical imperfection but also with "his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay and death" (39). The mark then becomes to Aylmer "the spectral Hand that wrote mortality, where he would fain have worshipped" (39). Aylmer's personality will not settle for minor improvement; he aims for "ultimate control over nature," and this desire for control translates directly into controlling his wife (36).

Aylmer is not only obsessed with the imperfection of his wife — he is obsessed with imperfection of any kind. The feminist theme emerges most sharply when he makes his wife a victim of his own selfish desire. Aylmer is otherwise a man of great intellect, introduced as "an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy" (36). His laboratory worker Aminadab, by contrast, is described as one who "issued from an inner apartment, a man of low stature" (43). Aylmer pays little respect to Aminadab, regarding him as a worthless creation. He calls this "under-worker" (43) "thou human machine . . . thou man of clay!" (51) and "Ah, clod! Ah, earthly mass!" (55). Aylmer sees himself as a man who creates "Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty . . ." (44).

Because Aylmer cannot possibly reform the rest of an imperfect world, he attempts to improve upon the beauty of the one person he can control — his wife Georgiana. The result is a disaster. The potion he prepares to remove the birthmark from her face severs the blood vessel that supplies her life, and she dies. The story can be read as a social commentary on women and their tendency to comply with unreasonable demands. Georgiana is beautiful and never even thinks about the birthmark until her husband draws attention to it. Only then does she fall into deep misery — and, in order to relieve his suffering, she agrees to drink the potion that kills her.

Emily Grierson and the Tyranny of Her Father

The opening line of Faulkner's story signals something important about Emily Grierson: "When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house . . ." (119). She is called a fallen monument because for decades she had stood firm against powerful currents of change. Yet her inability to accept change is attributed largely to her stern father, who refused to let her enjoy life as other young women did, leading to sexual repression and a profoundly lonely existence.

Hoffman (1951) notes that "in the picture of Emily and her father together, framed by the door, she frail and apparently hungering to participate in the life of her time . . . Even after her father's death, Emily is not monstrous, but rather looked like a girl 'with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows — sort of tragic and serene.'" (pp. 261–262). This image captures the essential tragedy of Emily's situation: she possessed the capacity for an ordinary life but was denied it by the controlling figure of her father. Aylmer and Georgiana replicate the same power dynamic as Emily and her father. Just as Emily spent her life trying to please a stern patriarch, Georgiana tried far too hard to ease her husband's distress — and that effort cost her everything.

Conclusion: The Common Thread of Male Control

The feminist theme in both stories connects them in a way that an ordinary study of the characters might not reveal. The victimization of women at the hands of men is the common thread that ties both stories together and enriches our understanding of the characters and their psychology. Where Georgiana embodies the danger of silent compliance, Emily stands as a darker, more defiant figure — one who refuses, at last, to be wholly consumed by male authority. Together, these two protagonists illuminate the costs that patriarchal control imposes on women and underscore the enduring relevance of feminist literary criticism to the American literary tradition.