Growing up women are taught to aspire to marriage and care for the family above all things. This has been what women were taught for ages, and it has been in everything from how they play to the roles they are expected to play when they become of age. Despite some rebellion, many women in literature continue this classic role of being a woman; doing everything they can to make the men in their lives happy. Both Georgiana, from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark,” and Eveline, from James Joyce’s “Eveline” from “The Dubliners,” fall into this pattern.In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark” Georgiana is introduced as the wife of the mad scientist Dr. Alymer, she is described as the most beautiful woman with the one thing that makes her imperfect being the flaming red birthmark in the shape of a hand that rests across her face and goes down to her heart. As time passes the more impassioned Dr. Alymer becomes until he convinces his wife to do a mortal experiment to remove the blemish. Even though he was warned, Alymer presses the experiment onto Georgiana, who was happy with her birthmark - not despite it.Georgiana did not want to remove her birthmark, even making remarks with the knowledge that removing it would cost her life, and yet she made the decision to go through with the experiment willingly to please her husband. At the beginning of the story Georgiana’s birthmark is described as “some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hands upon the infant’s cheek” (Hawthorne 305). It was something she never brought up with her husband, it was not something that she thought much of, and this in itself was an act of rebellion to be happy with herself. Not long after they were married though, Dr. Alymer began to have fantasies both waking and in slumber about her birthmark, obsessing over it and its removal. Enraptured with his obsession, desire, and guilt, Dr. Alymer seems to lose all love for his wife - if he ever did - and cannot look at her the same. During a time where women were defined by their husband and seen of little value to those who owned their hand, the realization that her husband would convulse at the sight of her was enough to have Georgiana beg her husband to remove it at any cost (Hawthorne 309). It is this very notion, the understand that the removal of her birthmark above all things would sate his obsession and please him most, that drives Georgiana to hysterics. She begins to plead for him to remove it, her hatred of the thing growing more and more from that very moment due to the way her husband sees it. Georgiana’s role as a woman, to please her husband, had cost her the ultimate price when she died after Alymer successfully removed her birthmark.Some women have far more rebellion in them than others however. James Joyce’s “Eveline” introduces the namesake, a young Irish woman who is trapped within the roles of a woman to take care of her drunkard father; out of sheer duty and sense of guilt. Eveline recounts moments of abuse with her father, as well as the role her mother had in her staying. She even makes mention of her brother Harry, who, as a male member of the family, was under no responsibility to stay and take care of his family and was, in fact, expected to move away and make a life of his own. Eveline’s rebellion to her role as a woman was personified in Frank, her Irish sailor beau. Eveline had made plans to run away and elope with Frank and move to Argentina with him and leave her whole life behind. She had written letters to both her father and brother and had even met Frank at the dock when Joyce’s recurring theme of paralysis kept her on the shore, chained to her life as a woman in Ireland and in her family.“Eveline” begins with her reminiscing about the people who have passed away in her life. From the man down the way from her home to her mother and brother, Eveline is haunted by the ghosts of her family. As a woman she is meant to be the caretaker of the house, and therefore equally of her family. The obligation she has as a woman is made obvious by Joyce when he mentions the promise that Eveline had made to her mother to keep the family together (Joyce 324). Eveline’s role is in stark contrast with her brother Harry who she comments was “always down somewhere in the country” and “gave what [money] he could” (Joyce 323). More than life and love, Eveline expresses her deepest desire to live, and for her the opportunity came with Frank’s plan to sail away to a new life. This rebellion did not last, unfortunately, and she would not see her life well lived, for when she prays to God to “show her what was her duty” - a very particular wording that goes against what she had been planning to do, done intentionally by Joyce - she is all but paralyzed by a drowning combination of fear, guilt, and liability. It is Joyce choice of words that make the reader completely understand that this was not something that was for the better nor something she was happy with. In his last paragraph he writes “She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal” (Joyce 325). It was her life and freedom that Eveline gave up to keep her family - all living members being men - happy.In literature the role of a woman comes at a price and this price can be wages, freedom, and even their very lives. It is obvious that the roles in which they play, paired with the men in their lives, is the path that lead to the hopeless and merciless paths of Georgiana and Eveline. Many critics would claim that it was the authors themselves being cruel to their female characters, but it can be a far bigger discussion if the focus were to shift on the roles of women were expected to play in society and literature. The real question is would we see a difference in the roles of women in literature today?This was an essay written for Eng 113 for Prof Denbo, in March of 2016