Foreshadowing In The Birthmark

Georgiana can be viewed as the protagonist of the story. Georgiana in the story is depicted as this beautiful woman who her husband Aylmer only dislikes one of her qualities/features which is her birthmark. The birthmark is described to represent a red hand on her cheek. Initially when Aylmer asks her if she has ever thought about getting her birthmark removed she thinks of it as a joke and begins to blush. It is not until that she realizes that he was in fact serious that she becomes somewhat distraught with him for rejecting her as she is. As the story progresses the audience can relate and sympathize with Georgiana as she is essentially the victim of her husband’s judgement and shock of what he claims to the birthmark to act as an ailment of her beauty. Aylmer goes on to calling her near perfection were it not for the birthmark, however as many would agree that in real life there is no such thing as perfection. Georgiana progressively begins to see her husband change and show his true nature. He becomes angry with her and does not trust her, leading to Georgiana essentially losing

The key instance of foreshadowing is when Aylmer is having a dream where he uses a knife to slice off Georgiana’s birthmark. In the dream he points out to do so he must cut it down to the root which is connected to her heart, which he does accomplish in his dream. Another scene of foreshadowing is when Georgiana sees her husband’s laboratory she faints, which to when I looked back at seemed like a metaphor. Her fainting at the time is a metaphor to her ultimately dying at the end after being given the potion. In terms of plot it is indicated and serve as red flags for what is to come in the story and shows that Aylmer is indirectly the antagonist and does ultimately kill his wife at the end of the story as