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Women's lives in the Victorian Age
The role of women in the Victorian era
The role of women in the Victorian era
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Recommended: Women's lives in the Victorian Age
In the nineteenth century domestic, maternal women were considered the ideal. Several authors challenged this ideal while others glorified it and showed it as completely pragmatic. After all, who better to raise and feed the family than the one who is responsible for giving life to them? Louisa May Alcott shows her primary female figure in Transcendental Wild Oats, Hope Lamb, in a strong traditional female role. Hope is arguably the strongest character in the story and serves as an alternative to the typical modern feminist society promotes today. In Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance, Zenobia is the heroine who to a great extend runs the commune. She is bold physically, spiritually and intellectually. She is very much different from Hope Lamb, but in many crucial ways, they are all too similar.
In Alcott's Transcendental Wild Oats, Hope Lamb is the faithful wife of Abel Lamb and the nurturing mother of Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth, and May. Hope wants little more than to keep her family happy and healthy. When Abel decides that the family will live on a tract of land to, "[ . . . ] initiate a Family in harmony with the primitive instincts of man" (Alcott 27), Hope stands by her man and agrees to uproot the family to follow her husband's whim. She is the constant voice of reason and sometimes sarcasm for the idealistic men. When discussing how the "vessels" that carry their food should be elegant and perfect, Mrs. Lamb asks, "Will whiting be allowed in the community?" (32). While this statement is perfectly legitimate, Alcott offers the reader the statement in such a way that the reader can not help but imagine the smirk Hope must have had when asking this question. She is a good wife and truly wants to make the commune wo...
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...oman's lot. Such reading is consistent with Zenobia's character [ . . . ]" (78). Much like Hope Lamb, Zenobia is concerned with a cause greater than herself. For Hope, it is her family, for Zenobia it is all of her fellow sisters in womanhood.
Both Alcott and Hawthorne provide brilliant examples of feminists and both, though different, are perfect for showing the complexities of American women. While many women make their cause global, many others contain their goals locally, and both are worthy of supporting feminism. Zenobia and Hope stand as examples of inredible characters that provide a Victorian era with a view of womanhood not often noticed.
Works Cited
Elbert, Sarah. A Hunger for Home: Louisa May Alcott and Little Women. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1984.
Schriber, Mary Suzanne. "Justice to Zenobia." The New England Quarterly 551 (1982) : 61-78.
Zora Hurston was an African American proto-feminist author who lived during a time when both African Americans and women were not treated equally. Hurston channeled her thirst for women’s dependence from men into her book Their Eyes Were Watching God. One of the many underlying themes in her book is feminism. Zora Hurston, the author of the book, uses Janie to represent aspects of feminism in her book as well as each relationship Janie had to represent her moving closer towards her independence.
In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne utilizes imagery to convey that Dimmesdale can represent Puritan Society rather than the round character that can be seen on the surface level. This is seen through the imagery and symbolism of hypocrisy, Dimmesdale as a Christ figure, and the scarlet letter.
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print.
How does one compare the life of women to men in late nineteenth century to mid-twentieth century America? In this time the rights of women were progressing in the United States and there were two important authors, Kate Chopin and John Steinbeck. These authors may have shown the readers a glimpse of the inner sentiments of women in that time. They both wrote a fictitious story about women’s restraints by a masculine driven society that may have some realism to what women’s inequities may have been. The trials of the protagonists in both narratives are distinctive in many ways, only similar when it totals the macho goaded culture of that time. Even so, In Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing we hold two unlike fictional characters in two very different short stories similar to Elisa Allen in the “Chrysanthemums” and Mrs. Louise Mallard in “The Story of an Hour”, that have unusual struggles that came from the same sort of antagonist.
Comparing the Roles of Women in Arcadia, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Look Back in Anger
Stewart, Randall. “Hawthorne’s Female Characters.” In Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne, edited by Clarice Swisher. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 1996.
The Blithedale Romance, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, is a story of a twisted utopia. This perfect world is twisted in that the roles of gender have a traditional utopian representation, only with a more contemporary take. Of course, this is interesting because this book was written and published in the 19th century when such ideas were beginning to establish a form for the genre of writing. Hawthorne combines fantasy, philosophy, mystery, gothic, and even [what would be called today] science fiction. This novel illustrates the early break from even fresh ideas. The writing style allows for the "genderizing degenderizing" affect as well as nature of the self.
For readers who observe literature through a feminist lens, they will notice the depiction of female characters, and this makes a large statement on the author’s perception of feminism. Through portraying these women as specific female archetypes, the author creates sense of what roles women play in both their families and in society. In books such as The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the roles that the main female characters play are, in different instances, both comparable and dissimilar.
Edna Ferber's themes for her books are unusual for her time. Her most encompassing theme is the feminist one. In one of her most famous novels, Cimarron, Ferber writes the following about her main character, Sabra: ?But she did a man?s job with the paper, often against frightening odds, for Yancey was frequently absent now, and she had no one but the wavering Jesse Rickey to consult? (Ferber 164). All of her central characters are women. Women usually possess greater endurance, ingenuity, perception, and initiative than men. As her stories progress, women became more intuitive, more practical, less romantic, less sentimental, and less gullible than men. In Cimarron, Ferber very clearly depicts her feminist theme. The protagonist, Sabra, slowly evolves throughout the novel, from a doting, dependent wife to a strong, independent l...
Can you imagine Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's Frankenstein, the great work of literature, without, for example, such female characters as Mrs. Margaret Saville, Elizabeth Lavenza, and Justine Moritz? In this case the novel will have no meaning. All the women help to develop the plot, and without them Frankenstein will lose its spirit. Although these heroines have a lot in common in their characters: they are all strong-willed, kind, careful, and selfless, at the same time, each of them is unique, and each plays her own role in the novel.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s character, Hester Prynne’s, actions creates a lot of controversy regarding Prynne’s sin, resulting in Hawthorne writing his critical essay, “On the Scarlet Letter.” D.H Lawrence critiques Hawthorne because he believes that Hawthorne favors Hester Prynne to an unnecessary extent , in The Scarlet Letter. Lawrence uses several devices that allow him to express his viewpoints about Hester Prynne and her sin. D.H. Lawrence uses biblical allusions, bullet-point syntax, and a mocking tone to convey his thoughts on why Hawthorne gives Hester Prynne too much credit.
Portrayal of Puritan Society in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter In the introductory sketch to Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel the "The Scarlet Letter", the reader is informed that one of the author's ancestors persecuted the Quakers harshly. The latter's son was a high judge in the Salem witch trials, put into literary form in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" (Judge Hathorne appears there). We learn that Hawthorne feels ashamed for their deeds, and that he sees his ancestors and the Puritan society as a whole with critical eyes. Consequently, both open and subtle criticism of the Puritans' practices is applied throughout the novel.
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been hardly recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman of society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women character in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a
Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.
The story Little Women takes place at a time when women were taking on uncustomary roles like physical laborer, family protector and provider, and military volunteer while their husbands served during the Civil War. Keeping within the boundaries of the time, Louisa May Alcott uses herself and her own three sisters to create this classical novel from personal experiences. Each sister is different. They each set goals and dreams for their selves whether it goes along with their contemporary society or not. With the assistance of their mother, friends and experiences, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy struggle between their personal expectations and society’s expectations as they plan for their future and choose their destinies.