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  • Essay / Obsessions Always Make Sense - 1219

    In the stories “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, they are similar because they both deal with the fact that wives are obsessed with something. Also in both stories, their husbands are worried and want to help them overcome their obsessions. The woman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is obsessed with the wallpaper on the wall and sees it as another world. She thinks there is someone stuck behind the wall and tries to get out. Tearing the wallpaper, she tries to free them. Later in the story, she then believes that she is the one stuck behind the wallpaper. Not understanding her obsession with wallpaper, her husband sees it as scary and he faints. When her husband faints, she is afraid because she no longer knows who he is. In "The Birthmark", the woman is obsessed with her birthmark and believes it means something. Her husband considers her birthmark a burden and removes it himself. Liz Rosenberg speaks of Aylmer saying, "In Aylmer's delusion, he mistakes Georgiana's physical imperfection for a spiritual imperfection and, in trying to cure her of her human nature, he kills her" (146). In both stories, the wives have an obsession that worries their husbands. Wives have their own way of entertaining and being happy. Never question someone and what they do because we are all unique and different in our own way. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote “The Birth-Mark” for newlyweds. It is a story based on women who do anything and everything just to satisfy their husbands and their needs. Liz Rosenberg writes: “'The Birth-Mark' is a love story like much of Hawthorne's greatest fiction, dealing with the relationship between men and women. “Love” I...... middle of paper ......013. 655-666. Print. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. “The birthmark.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 340-351. Print.Chevalier, Denise. "'I could paint still lifes as well as any Earth': Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the art world." Women's Studies 35.5 (2006): 475-492. Academic research completed. Internet. March 17, 2014 Rosenberg, Liz. “'The Best the Earth Has to Offer': 'The Birthmark', the Story of a Newlywed. » Studies in Short Fiction 30.2 (1993): 145. Academic research completed. Internet. March 17, 2014Scott, Heidi. “Crazy Nature: Ecology in the Yellow Wallpaper.” Explainer 67.3 (2009): 198-203. Academic research completed. Internet. March 17, 2014.Shakinovsky, Lynn. “The Return of the Repressed: Illiteracy and the Death of Narrative in Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark.” ATQ 9.4 (1995): 269. Academic research completed. Internet. March 17. 2014.