John L. Idol, Jr., and Melinda M. Ponder in Hawthorne and Women: Engendering and Expanding the Hawthorne Tradition, portray the heroines in "The Birth-mark" and "Rappaccini's Daughter" as "victims" who are penalized by men who try to re-make them.

"*’The Birth-mark’ and ‘Rappaccini's Daughter,’ both written after his marriage, the first appearing in 1843, the second in 1844. Here women are victims and suffer death because the men in their lives cannot accept them as they are" (Idol and Ponder 300). (courtesy of University of Massachusetts Press )