Feminist Themes in "The Birthmark" and "A Rose for Emily"
This essay compares the feminist themes in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Birthmark" and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," examining how male dominance and obsession victimize the female protagonists. While Georgiana in Hawthorne's story succumbs silently to her husband Aylmer's perfectionist obsession, Emily in Faulkner's tale responds to male control with unexpected agency. The paper explores how both women suffer not because of personal failings but because of the men who seek to define and confine them, ultimately arguing that the shared feminist thread is the most meaningful connection between these two otherwise distinct American short stories.
- Overview of Characters and Themes: Introduces protagonists and key thematic differences
- The Feminist Thread Connecting Both Stories: Identifies shared feminist theme across both texts
- Aylmer's Obsession and Georgiana's Victimization: Analyzes Aylmer's control and Georgiana's fatal compliance
- Emily's Defiance and Agency: Contrasts Emily's active resistance with Georgiana's passivity
- Parallels Between the Two Women: Draws structural and thematic parallels between both women
- Conclusion: Summarizes victimization as the unifying theme
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its comparison in a clear shared theme — feminist victimization — rather than forcing superficial plot parallels between two very different stories.
- It draws on credible scholarly sources, including Judith Fetterley's The Resisting Reader, to support its feminist reading rather than relying solely on personal interpretation.
- It acknowledges meaningful differences between the two female characters (Georgiana's passive compliance versus Emily's active revenge), which strengthens rather than weakens the comparative argument.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper demonstrates comparative literary analysis: the writer identifies a unifying thematic lens (feminist critique of male control) and applies it consistently to two separate texts, using textual evidence and secondary scholarship to build the argument. By contrasting how each woman responds to male oppression, the essay reveals deeper meaning in both works simultaneously.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens by distinguishing the characters across both works before narrowing to its central feminist argument. It then examines Aylmer's obsessive dominance over Georgiana in detail, drawing on close reading of the text. It pivots to Emily's contrasting response — agency and revenge — before drawing the two threads together in a parallel analysis. The conclusion reinforces the shared theme of male-inflicted suffering as the primary bond between the two stories.
Overview of Characters and Themes
Georgiana and Aylmer in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story "The Birthmark" and Emily in William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" share few, if any, obvious similarities. Faulkner's story has no important characters other than the protagonist Emily herself. Hawthorne's story, however, features two main characters, with Aylmer dominating Georgiana throughout. Georgiana enjoys only a symbolic presence in the story, serving as the object of Aylmer's obsession, while Aylmer himself plays the dominant role.
"The Birthmark" is essentially a love story with a strong feminist streak. The only meaningful similarity between these two works emerges from this feminist theme. On the surface, "The Birthmark" concerns a man's obsession with everything the world can offer. This is a telling concept, since the obsession is directly connected to a chauvinistic desire to control a woman. In "A Rose for Emily," the same feminist theme appears in the form of Emily's father's desire to mold his daughter into a proper lady.
Hawthorne's and Faulkner's women are, however, quite different from one another. While Georgiana is an angelic character who wants only to please her husband, Emily is not that kind of woman. Although Emily initially presents as a thorough lady, she still possesses the courage to act in ways considered unladylike when circumstances demand it. The difference between the two women is subtle but important. Georgiana's desire to change her appearance for her husband's sake leads to her death, while Homer's betrayal of Emily results in his murder rather than Emily's self-destruction. As Judith Fetterley observes, "When Emily buys the poison, it never occurs to anyone that she intends to use it on Homer, so strong is the presumption that ladies when jilted commit suicide, not murder." (Fetterley, 1978, p. 41)
References
The Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. 20 vols. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1962–85. "The Birth-mark," pp. 36–56. Columbus: Ohio State UP, 1968.
Hoffman, Frederick J., and Olga W. Vickery, eds. William Faulkner: Two Decades of Criticism. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State College Press, 1951.
Faulkner, William. "A Rose for Emily." Collected Stories. New York: Vintage, 1977, p. 128.
Fetterley, Judith. The Resisting Reader: A Feminist Approach to American Fiction. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1978.
Feminist Criticism and Social Change, ed. Judith Newton and Deborah Rosenfelt. New York: Methuen, 1985.
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