Margaret Atwood’s novel, Alias Grace, nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, depicts a young 16 year old girl who is found guilty of murdering her employer and his lover in conspiracy with James McDerrmott. James McDermott is put to death by hanging, but Grace is brought to prison because she is of the “weaker sex.” This is a reflection of the construction of femininity and masculinity of the mid and late nineteenth century. A social issue of the Victorian age was women being treated as subordinate to men. Queen Victoria says, “Victorian ideology of gender rested on the belief that women were both physically and intellectually the inferior sex”(YILDIRIM). Women were seen as highly susceptible to becoming mentally ill because of this belief. Women were subject to only be “housewives.” The novel, Alias Grace, accurately shows the construction of this gender identity through society, sexuality, and emotion while challenging it through Grace’s mother and Mrs. Humphrey.
Society shows the stereotypical way of thinking in the Victorian era: women are subordinate to men. This can be seen through Mary Whitney. Mary Whitney tells Grace what her goals should be and how she should act: “It was a custom for young girls in this country to hire themselves out, in order to earn money for their dowries, and then they would marry, and if their husbands proposed they would soon be hiring their own servants in their turn and then they, ―would be mistress of a tidy farmhouse, and independent” (Atwood 182). Mary Whitney is explaining to Grace that a woman needs to get married in order for her to be successful. This was the gender construction of the time, and she is trying to get Grace to take on that role. This is very true to the a...
... middle of paper ...
...ng it through Grace’s mother and Mrs. Humphrey. The novel depicts this construct of gender identity through society by molding Grace to believe women are subordinate and need to get married and be good housewives to be successful. This construct is seen through emotion as women who are emotional are seen as “abnormal” and sent to asylums, while men had to power to do so. The societal construct of gender identity was seen as men were to bask in their sexuality and be assertive, while women were to be passive and suppress their sexuality. Mrs. Humphrey challenged this construct as she was assertive and the instigator. Lastly, the societal construct of gender identity was challenged through Grace’s mother as she took over the males position of being the provider. Overall, women were looked at as subordinate to men in the Victorian age and Atwood challenged this belief.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
The industrialization of the nineteenth century was a tremendous social change in which Britain initially took the lead on. This meant for the middle class a new opening for change which has been continuing on for generations. Sex and gender roles have become one of the main focuses for many people in this Victorian period. Sarah Stickney Ellis was a writer who argued that it was the religious duty of women to improve society. Ellis felt domestic duties were not the only duties women should be focusing on and thus wrote a book entitled “The Women of England.” The primary document of Sarah Stickney Ellis’s “The Women of England” examines how a change in attitude is greatly needed for the way women were perceived during the nineteenth century. Today women have the freedom to have an education, and make their own career choice. She discusses a range of topics to help her female readers to cultivate their “highest attributes” as pillars of family life#. While looking at Sarah Stickney Ellis as a writer and by also looking at women of the nineteenth century, we will be able to understand the duties of women throughout this century. Throughout this paper I will discuss the duties which Ellis refers to and why she wanted a great change.
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
The Victorian era was remarkable for its rigid gender roles, which defined societal interactions. The prototypical Victorian woman existed in the domestic sphere, where she acted as a moral compass to guide her husband and children toward traditional morality. This vision was mostly limited to the middle and upper classes, but if her family’s circumstances were good, the Victorian woman might have spread her domestic, moralizing influence outside of her home to help the less fortunate. The Victorian man, on the other hand, occupied the public sphere, where he dealt with business and politics, and the more complex moral codes of the two. His home was a retreat, where he could take comfort in the morally upright space his wife made for him. However, as the period wore on, these strict gender roles proved to be too oppressive, and a “New Woman” emerged. The New Woman, as portrayed by Vivie Warren in Mrs. Warren’s Profession, steps out of the domestic sphere, a move that requires agency, moral complexity, and separation from – sometimes even emulation of – men. Because this stance was so different from the typical Victorian woman, it posed challenges not just for the New Women themselves, but for all members of society they interacted with.
During the Victorian Age, 1830-1901, society had firm opinions on how they believed women should behave. The opinions, however, changed and varied a great deal over the span of the 71 years that made up the Victorian period. Towards the beginning of that era women were seen as the fairer sex, and the majority of their early lives were spent preparing for marriage. Over the course of the Victorian era, however, society made many different social, political, and economic changes, as well as witnessed the creation of many new gadgets. As society evolved throughout the Victorian era to be more advanced, it also became more aware of the need to treat women as equals in regards to rights, jobs, pastimes, and opinions. An example of inequality that women faced during that time was when men would keep up the appearance of being in a loving family, meanwhile they would be cheating on their wives and betraying their families (Frost 196). As Horrible as husbands cheating on their wives was, that was not what was seen as the issue at that time. The part of cheating during that era that bugged society was that if a woman committed the same trespass and was unfaithful in a marriage she would be publicly shamed (Frost 196). It is because of this injustice to women, and the many other examples of inequality that they faced that during the Victorian era, that the English wished to reform marriage. They felt that the structure of marriage was unfair to the females involved. By the end of the era, there had been a significant amount of ground laid towards female equality. The literary works The Lady of Shalott and The Goblin Market address and respond to the conflicts and roles of women as they changed over the course of the Victorian era. Both p...
Canadian feminist author, Margaret Atwood, has written many novels, short stories, and poems reflecting the difficulties women have faced throughout the late 1900s. By creating characters that portray the new woman, Atwood’s relatable yet surprising plots demonstrate the struggles women have gone through to earn their standings in society. Now, in the twenty-first century, women have earned a nearly equal status to men in many important areas. Some of these areas include occupation, education, and intelligence. As women become more successful, the importance of certain female traits become emphasized. Atwood creates female characters that embody the image of the ideal new woman. In addition to her female characters, Atwood develops characters that pose as representations of the past. The characters that are the most relatable to readers are the ones who tackle the difficult roles of being a wife, a mother, and a woman in a predominantly male-run civilization. In Margret Atwood’s The Edible Woman, The Handmaid’s Tail, and Surfacing, female characters confront the challenges of developing their role in a marriage, escaping oppression from society, and accepting the value of fertility.
The roles and definition of gender and its implications have been and still are complex and often times confusing depending on the circumstance. What really defines masculinity/femininity and can they be interchangeable in the sexes? Can a woman act like a man and vice versa without it somehow going against nature? With this ever changing definition and implication of gender, it is interesting McEwan sets us up in a world seeming to have black and white view of this debate. Throughout Atonement the divide between masculinity and femininity is un-doubtfully present and is almost always hard and fast. The fact that this representation of gender creates ideal circumstances, within the world McEwan’s characters inhabit, and the fact that Briony
The Handmaid's Tale presents an extreme example of sexism and misogyny by featuring the complete objectification of women in the society of Gilead. Yet by also highlighting the mistreatment of women in the cultures that precede and follow the Gileadean era, Margaret Atwood is suggesting that sexism and misogyny are deeply embedded in any society and that serious and deliberate attention must be given to these forms of discrimination in order to eliminate them.
Charlotte Bront’s Jane Eyre entails a social criticism of the oppressive social ideas and practices of nineteenth-century Victorian society. The presentation of male and female relationships emphasizes men’s dominance and perceived superiority over women. Jane Eyre is a reflection of Bront’s own observation on gender roles of the Victorian era, from the vantage point of her position as governess, much like Jane’s. Margaret Atwood’s novel was written during a period of conservative revival in the West partly fueled by a strong, well-organized movement of religious conservatives who criticized ‘the excesses of the sexual revolution.’ Where Bront’s Jane Eyre is a clear depiction of the subjugation of women by men in nineteenth-century Western culture, Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale explores the consequences of a reversal of women’s rights by men.
In the Victorian Era of mid nineteen to early twentieth century, a woman’s role in society remained to be in the household, away from the business and cares of men. The feminine side is portrayed as negative, powerless, and lacking (Kileen 49). Society discouraged women from having power in society and neglecting women represented normal in the eyes of most men and women. However, Victorian novels such as The Picture of Dorian Gray illustrate the consequences of disregarding women. In Oscar Wilde’s only novel, the lack of importance surrounding the female characters and their careless treatment from men results in the selfishness of the male characters exemplified through Dorian Gray’s acts of evil.
Women were perceived as either being a housewife, a nurturer, or a person for company. They did not have the right to vote till later on, work, and if they had an opinion that a male do not agree with, women are considered “wicked”; not savvy, not prudent but wicked to the core. It is unfair, unethical, atrocious, but through it all there was one female who dared to challenge the mind of men and the notion that women can be more than what men perceive them as being. Her name is Margaret Fuller. The goals of Margaret Fuller were precise. Men should realize that women are not an epitome of a statue but human beings, just as men, women can achieve full adulthood and citizenship, but most vitally Margaret aimed to change the assumptions about
The literary titles by Frances Power Cobbe, Sarah Stickney Ellis, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Sir Henry Newbolt, and Caroline Norton reveal society's view on women and men during the Victorian era. Throughout the Victorian era, women were treated as inferior and typically reduced to roles as mothers and wives. Some women, however, were fortunate to become governesses or schoolteachers. Nevertheless, these educated women were still at the mercy of men. Males dominated the opinions of women, and limited their influence in society. From an early age, young men were trained to be dominant figures and protectors over their home and country. Not until after World War I would women have some of these same opportunities as men.
In the Eighteenth and Nineteenth centuries, the idea of patriarchy ruled the many societies all over the world. Particularly in Britain, its “overarching patriarchal model” (Marsh) had “reserved power and privilege for men” (Marsh). Also during this time period feminist literature began to arise and was invaded by, “the complex social, ethical, and economic roots of sexual politics… as testimony to gender bias and the double standard” (“Sexual Politics and Feminist Literature”). In Jane Austen’s writing, readers have been aware of her constant themes of female independence and gender equality. However, many have criticized the author for the fact that many of her “individualistic” female characters have ended up
Mrs. Marian Forrester strikes readers as an appealing character with the way she shifts as a person from the start of the novel, A Lost Lady, to the end of it. She signifies just more than a women that is married to an old man who has worked in the train business. She innovated a new type of women that has transitioned from the old world to new world. She is sought out to be a caring, vibrant, graceful, and kind young lady but then shifts into a gold-digging, adulterous, deceitful lady from the way she is interpreted throughout the book through the eyes of Niel Herbert. The way that the reader is able to construe the Willa Cather on how Mr. and Mrs. Forrester fell in love is a concept that leads the reader to believe that it is merely psychological based. As Mrs. Forrester goes through her experiences such as the death of her husband, the affairs that she took part in with Frank Ellinger, and so on, the reader witnesses a shift in her mentally and internally. Mrs. Forrester becomes a much more complicated women to the extent in which she struggles to find who really is and that is a women that wants to find love and be fructuous in wealth. A women of a multitude of blemishes, as a leading character it can be argued that Mrs. Forrester signifies a lady that is ultimately lost in her path of personal transitioning. She becomes lost because she cannot withstand herself unless she is treated well by a wealthy male in which causes her to act unalike the person she truly is.
Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, demonstrates a social criticism on women’s power to control their own fate and the ideal women in the nineteenth century. Specifically in Lyn Pykett’s, Changing the Names: The Two Catherines, a strong feminist perspective is explored. In her criticism she goes through many different analyses of Catherine Earnshaw-Linton and her daughter Cathy and what they represent in regard to a women’s power and social expectations in the nineteenth century. Pykett says that the two Catherines represent women’s true nature according to Brontë. Catherine Earnshaw-Linton is faced with the choice between two men but chooses based on what is accepted in her society, the man that can provide her economically, not the man whom she loves. This marriage to Edgar instead of Heathcliff is the source of Catherine’s problems and ultimately her demise. It causes one to question whether it is right to marry for the social aspect or for true love. Young Cathy seems to face the problem her mother has as well but she finds a way to be true to her nature and fight the tyrann...