The Birthmark

1. Aylmer first criticizes Georgiana’s birthmark “very soon after” their wedding (Paragraph 2), and a classmate comments on the girlchild’s nose and legs “in the magic of puberty” (Line 5). In both cases, the timing implies a link between the criticism and the woman/girl’s sexuality (the consummation of a marriage and the sexual awakening of puberty, respectively).

2. Aylmer dreams about removing the birthmark surgically; the deeper he cuts, however, the farther it recedes into Georgiana’s body, finally settling on her heart (and foreshadowing her death). A similarly violent image appears in “Barbie Doll” in which the main character “cut[s] off her nose and legs” in response to criticism (Line 17).

3. Aylmer is disdainful of (or even disgusted by) the material world and the body, which he associates with mortality and (relatedly, in his implicitly Christian worldview) sin. This informs his attitude towards Georgiana’s birthmark, which he associates with “the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature […] stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain” (Paragraph 8). In “Barbie Doll,” Piercy emphasizes the woman’s healthy physicality (as opposed to the unhealthy gendered expectations she internalizes) with phrases like “strong arms and back” and “abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (Lines 8, 9).