Women during this time were only allowed to go so far and do so much without being restrained it seemed like. She doubts herself in letters she sends to her female friends who sympathize with her problems in choosing her partner for marriage. As a result to her resent of her thoughts about female powerlessness, and her outspoken thoughts of marriage. Virtue also resulted in achievement of morality, which was identified with marriage. Also Eliza resisted the sexual double-standard which I found really amazing.
In the poem “Medusa” gender conflict through control is also illustrated when she says: “a suspicion, a doubt, a jealousy”. This depicts that she feels ownership over her husband and wants him to “be terrified” if he does not obey her commands. However, in “Les Grands Seigneurs” the narrator conveys that after she was “wedded, bedded … a toy, a plaything … wife” she is nostalgic for the first three stanzas to how men were towards her before she was married as she is now powerless. We can depict that there was less gender conflict before she was married. Moreover, in “Medusa” powerlessness is also portrayed when she rhetorically questions herself “Wasn’t I beautiful?
Other novels I read include The Dead by James Joyce and Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy, both of which addressed the theme of materialism and wealth as factors to being regarded highly in society, and how this way of functioning in society leads people away from living a true and happy life. These novels were written decades ago. One would think that with these societal problems being recognized for so long, we would have made more progress than we have by now. Instead, activists such as Audre Lourde stand decades later, addressing the same issues. Lourde, what with being a middle-aged, black, lesbian feminist with children, faces much of this oppression, and finds herself frowned upon by society.
When most women relied on male relatives or husbands to survive, her earlier experiences in life led her to a different outlook on how she wanted to live her life (Allen par 1). She supported herself by developing her intellect and living by her beliefs. By a young age, she was determined to change the views of marriage for women (Frazer par 2). As a child, her views of marriage were shaped by her own unhappy family life. Her unsuccessful and violent father moved the family many times, and her older brother was favored by her grandfathers’ will.
Once the war-ended women got laid off from their jobs as men took them back. The postwar culture embraced a contradiction between the tensions of domestic ideals and individual success. This was hard for women because during World War II expectations were raised of what life could be like. Women believed it was possible to imagine these duel roles to experience economic dependence; however this ends
As an example two influential short stories will be discussed in depth in order to shed light into the lives of the two authors and their stories. The short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) and Angela Carter (1940–1992) both sideway the same idea; the confinement of women in particular roles and positions in both personal and professional lives, posed on them by patriarchal figures. Toril Moi quotes in her examination of feministic criticism, Sexual/Textual Politics (2002), Elaine Showalter’s idea that “women writers should not be studied as a distinct group on the assumption that they write alike, or even display stylistic resemblances distinctively feminine” (Moi, 2002: 49), which comes across when reading the two stories which are stylistically already very different. It might be so that a feminist reader of both times (there’s some 80 years difference between the two stories) did not only want to see her own experiences mirrored in fiction, but strived to identify with strong, impressive female characters (Moi, 2002: 46), and looked for role-models that would instil positive sense of feminine identity by portraying women as self-actualising strong identities who were not dependent on men (Moi, 2002, 46). The two stories bring out two female characters, very different by position and character; the other a new mother, scared and confused of her own role, and the other a young newly-wed girl, still a child, being fouled by a much older man, mainly as a mark of his authority over women in general.
In literature, we are able to view what were the roles of women years ago. Women were not expected to work, and their only future was to be married and have children, and some marriages were loveless marriages. This is exactly what happened to the women in these short stories; they were repressed and were unhappy with their lives: The “Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant and “The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin. In both stories, authors portray the story of two women that have different stories, but with almost the same type of problems. The similarities and differences from both stories are that both women are in unhappy marriages, the theme of the stories, the irony, the symbolism, they were written using the third-person point of view, both had loving husbands, and the end of both stories are sad and tragic.
AP English Open-ended Prompt: 1987 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen seems to challenge the traditional order of society in her time and age, where women marry not out of love but rather for wealth and an establishment of a stable household. She presents this progressive stance through the contrasting relationships of couples who had a love marriage such as, Darcy and Elizabeth as well as Jane and Bingley, as opposed to couples who did not - Mr. and Mrs. Bennett as well as Lydia and Wickham. From the very beginning of the novel, it is clear to the readers that Mr. and Mrs. Bennett do not have a very loving nor compatible relationship, despite the frequency to which she addresses him as ‘my dear’. In fact, it is evident that even
Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti The Poem ‘Cousin Kate’ by Christina Rossetti, tells the story of a young woman from the Victorian period who has fallen for a wealthy lord and had is child out of wedlock. The young woman then watches as the lord marries her Cousin Kate. The poem tells us that women of this time have many expectations in life, but are governed by men who give them no real freedom. I feel in this poem Rossetti is saying that women can only truly be happy if they break away from social expectations. Rossetti shows us she resents men and the power they have over women and also the weakness and few liberties that women have in this period.
Alexandra “If Shakespeare Had a Sister” Virginia Woolf grew up facing many prejudices against educated women. As a result of her desire to be well educated, she took personal offense at the tradition of putting down women educated beyond the social norms. Shakespeare’s sister or any other woman would not have been able to rise to his status and maintain her sanity in the face of the rejection, denial and disapproval that would result from the attempt. The use of example is a tool Woolf uses well to demonstrate her points and exhibit her knowledge of classical texts and critical writing skills. One of Woolf’s supports for her essay was that she discusses the everyday life of a woman so far as she has been to piece it together from the few reports she has been able to recover of that time; complaining that there is not nearly enough information on the period only supports her claims.