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Who Is To Blame In The Birthmark

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Failure to distance yourself from toxic people can be fatal. A literary portrayal of this can be seen in The Birthmark. Aylmer and Georgiana’s emotionally abusive relationship ended with the death of Georgiana. Although some may argue that Georgiana’s death is her own fault, she is not to blame. Aylmer thought Georgiana’s birthmark was imperfect and wanted to remove it. Aylmer is to blame for Georgiana’s death by showing her how much he hated the birthmark and by eventually making her hate it herself, causing her to allow him to remove it. Georgiana loved Aylmer so much she was willing to change the way she looks to make him happy. She saw how disgusted he was with her and she couldn’t take it. “Pray do not look at it again. I never can …show more content…

In this quote, Georgiana is explaining how she likes her birthmark. She says this after Aylmer asks her if she had ever thought of getting it removed. Georgiana did not want to have it removed, she thought it was a charm. This is the first time Aylmer brings up the birthmark and Georgiana is completely devastated. This quote is the most important quote in the whole story because it proves Georgiana did like her birthmark at some point. If Georgiana never liked her birthmark it would be a different story, she would have had it removed for herself; but she had loved her birthmark and got it removed for Aylmer’s happiness, not her own. “Not even Aylmer now hated it as much as she” (Hawthorne, 297). All the things Aylmer said and did resulted in Georgiana hating her birthmark. She was told and shown, so often, how vile it was that she finally believed it; he made her believe it. An ordinary, beautiful, admired woman was dispossessed of her own self-worth by the man whom she was married to. He abused her into hating her birthmark. Georgiana would of not died on that day if Aylmer had not caused her to hate something she once appreciated about

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