Identity

Women’s roles during the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story The Birthmark was one of a submissive housewife. During these times it was a society of male domination. Women spent their life’s feeling inferior to men and doing as they were told. They were taught to be obedient to their husbands and were the ruler of the house. It was the wife’s duty to do anything and everything to please their husband. The role of Georgina in The Birthmark was one of a traditional subservient housewife of the times. Throughout the short story Georgina is trying desperately to please her husband. She had made no notice of her birthmark until one evening her husband Aylmer says to her “Georgina, he said, “has it ever occurred to you that the mark upon your check might be removed.” (Hawthorne, 1843) She had never thought of her birthmark in such away before in fact she was very happy. From that evening on she became, as her husband Aylmer, obbessed about having her birthmark removed. As women of her time would do Georgina wanted to do anything she could to please her husband. She tells her husband, “If there be the remotest possibility of it, continued Georgina, “Let the attempt be made at whatever risk.” (Hawthorne, 1843) Georgina, as most women of her time always did, was willing to do anything no matter what the cost to give her husband what he so desperately wanted which was a perfect wife.
Unlike in Georgina time, today’s wives are anything but submissive.   Georgina wanted to please her husband in any way she could, even if it was at her own expense. I can relate to her need to please others.   I am a stay at home mom during a time in which it is rare to be. As Georgina desperately wanted to make her husband happy I find myself seeking to make other people see that what I do is just as important as having a career. Women who chose to stay home to take care of their families are not regarded in the same way as women who return to their careers after staring their families. I...