Gender Roles in Little House on the Prairie

2315 Words5 Pages

Building an Empire through Gender Roles in Little House on the Prairie Children’s literature of the Nineteenth Century is notoriously known for its projection of expected Victorian gender roles upon its young readers. Male and female characters were often given specific duties, reactions, and characteristics that reflected society’s particular attitudes and moral beliefs onto the upcoming citizens of the empire. These embedded concepts helped to encourage nationality and guide children towards their specific gender roles which would ensure the kingdom’s future success. Even in class situations where the demanding gender roles were unreasonable to fulfill, the pressure to conform to the Victorian beliefs was still prevalent. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...g citizens successfully had their attention directed towards their expected gender roles and appropriate spheres of influence within their roles to support the empire in order to continue the domination of the Kingdom. Works Cited Brannon, Linda. "Chapter 7 Gender Stereotypes: Masculinity and Femininity." Gender: Psychological Perspectives. 4th ed. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2005. 159-83. Print. Labrie, Janet M. "The Depiction of Women's Field Work in Rural Fiction." Agricultural History 67 (Spring 1993): 119-33. JSTOR. Web. 15 Mar. 2012. Sadker, Myra, David Sadker, and Susan Klein. "The Issue of Gender in Elementary and Secondary Education." Review of Research in Education 17 (1991): 269. JSTOR. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. Wilder, Laura Ingalls, and Garth Williams. Little House on the Prairie. New York: Harper & Bros., 1953. Print.

Show More
Related

  • The History of Feminine Fiction:Exploring Laura Runge’s Article, Gendered Strategies in the Criticism of Early Fiction

    1344 Words  | 3 Pages

    As the social and economic conditions of eighteenth century Britain shifted from a family based system to one dependent on industry, women were no longer valuable as workers. This transition allowed for the developing reading habits of the middleclass woman as they were left with more free time. However, the cultural definition of females compromised the feminized genre. As women were defined as subordinate to men, their literature was reduced by critics to "bad-fiction." One critic wrote, "So long at the British ladies continue to encourage our hackney scribblers, by reading every romance that appears, we need not wonder that the press should swarm with such poor insignificant productions" (365). Despite the presumed inferiority of fiction, authors, ...

    Read More

  • Gender Stereotypes In Little House On The Prairie

    644 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of racial portrayal as animalistic, that has been seen in several previous readings, as well as the tomboyish aspects of our main character continues in the Little House on the Prairie. On page 123, Laura asks (as she has asked several times in the book) “Pa, when are we going to see a papoose?” to which her mother replies “Goodness! What do you want to see an Indian baby for? Put on your sunbonnet, now, and forget such nonsense.” Ma reaction to Laura wanting to see a baby Indian comes across as horrified, while Laura sees it as a source of entertainment. She treats the Indians as if they are animals at the zoo, something for her to observe as entertainment. When she see Indians for the first time as they enter the house, she hides

    Read More

  • Women of the Nineteenth Century: Sarah Stickney Ellis

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Vivie warren

    1857 Words  | 4 Pages

    In addition to gender roles, social classes were incredibly important in Victorian life. The typical woman’s life was framed mostly by her interactions with men of equal social standing. For Vivie, this means the middle class. Because the prototypical Victorian woman was most common in the middle class, a New Woman like Vivie encountered resistance to her way of life. The resistance was often passive, though, a result of men who are unable to comprehend a more independent woman. Mr. Praed is a f...

    Read More

  • Essay On Inequality In The Victorian Era

    1291 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Feminism In Jane Eyre

    635 Words  | 2 Pages

    In nineteenth century Great Britain, women’s status and rights are almost non existent. She cannot vote, she cannot own property, she cannot get divorced. Everything she has— even her body—belongs to her husband. Women who come from humble beginnings are constrained into the occupations of household servants, farm laborers or factory workers in order to survive. “The only ‘genteel’ professions open to middle-class women [are] governess, school teacher or companion to a wealthy woman with its awkward status between servant and lady” (Thaden 66). The only reasonable way for women to obtain any social position or economic security is to be married into it. Unlike most middle-class boys who receive an education to prepare them for a profession, mo...

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in Alice Munro’s "Boys and Girls" and Bobbie Ann Mason’s "Shiloh"

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    Up until recently, the definition of what a man or a woman should be has been defined, with boundaries, by society; males should be strong, dominant figures and in the workplace providing for their families while females should be weak and submissive, dealing with cleaning, cooking and children. Any veering away from these definitions would have disrupted the balance of culture completely. A man playing housewife is absurd, and a woman being the sole provider for the family is bizarre. In Alice Munro’s short story “Boys and Girls” and Bobbie Ann Mason’s “Shiloh”, conflict arises when expectations based on gender are not fulfilled by the characters. According to “Boys and Girls”, there are certain things women should not be doing as defined by their gender.

    Read More

  • How Does Sylvia Plath Use Gender Stereotypes In The Bell Jar

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the nineteenth century, gender roles were outrageously strict. Linda Brannon, a Doctorate Professor of Psychology at McNeese State University, states “a gender stereotype consists of beliefs about the psychological traits and characteristics

    Read More

  • The Sex during the Victorian Era

    573 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Victorian era brought about many changes and the introduction of new things. One issue that stood out was “The Sex.” Many things evolved around this issue like changes in laws all over, it became a topic for literary poets/ writers and also for the woman question. This term means discrimination based on a person’s sex and during the 19th century this was a vast issue toward women. This all Started from the early Victorian era with queen victoria, who was the monarch of the united kingdom of Great Britain from 1837- 1901. Being the queen she played a very substantial role during this time. As a wife she showed a domestic side. She supported Prince Albert, had his children, became very submissive and devoted to her husband a family. This image she portrayed became a trend to the outside world. Most people looked at this as what the ideal woman was during this era.

    Read More

  • Power of the Frontier Exposed in My Antonia

    1932 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pickle, Linda S. "Foreigh-Born Immigrants on the Great Plains Frontier in Fiction and Nonfiction." Desert, Garden, Margin, Range Literature on the American Frontier. Ed. Eric Heyne. New York, NY: Twayne, 1992. 70-89

    Read More

  • In Anne Bronte's 'The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall'

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    But in reality, a male narrator gives a certain sense of understanding to the male audience and society’s understand of the male and females roles and responsibilities in a marriage. Just as men were expected to cut the grass, take out the trash, pay the bills and maintain the household as a whole, women were expected to cook, clean, nurture the children, and be a loving and submissive wife to their husband. The only stipulation required for this exchange of power was to establish a mutual love. In the Victorian age love was all it took for a man to take or alter a woman’s livelihood and

    Read More

  • Victorian Women And Gender Inequality In The Victorian Era

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    In times before the Victorian era, it was common for women to work alongside men to run farms and contribute to the family businesses. However, when jobs began to move outside the home and men traveled to work every day, the women were left at home with their daughters, expected to run the household (Hughes 1). The failure of the society at the time to recognize the injustice in which this lifestyle served to the women was the root of gender inequality in the Victorian

    Read More

  • Gender Differences and the Threat of Gender Stereotype in Science Education

    1058 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender differences in education is something of a common topic among educational studies since intensification in the 1970’s (Breakwell, 2003, p. 437). Gender differences among the subjects taught in school has been found to be somewhat more of a social construct rather than a concept that has any kind of scientific explanation because of the idea of gender differences being taken and changed into the idea of a gender stereotype in most parts of education (Crilly, 2013, p. 1).

    Read More

  • Women In Victorian Era

    1349 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the Victorian era, women were viewed as the very opposite of what a man ought to be. In the words of John Stuart Mill, who published a criticism of the way society differentiated between males and females "The female sex was brought up to believe that its ‘ideal of character’ was the very opposite to that of men’s ‘not self-will , and government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others" to live for others; to make complete abnegation of themselves, and to have no life but in their affections.’” (171) Basically, women were expected to be sweet, docile, and man’s perfect helpmate.

    Read More

  • Following The Equator Literary Analysis

    1360 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before beginning with a discussion of the text, it is necessary to have a proper understanding of gender roles in the Victorian era. Victorian society was exceedingly patriarchal and oppressive toward women. “Traditionally, women were defined physically and intellectually as the 'weaker' sex, in all ways subordinate to male authority” (Marsh 4). The widespread ideology of the period was that men and women belonged to “separate spheres”: women to the domestic sphere and men to the public sphere. “Women were allotted a subsidiary

    Read More

More about Gender Roles in Little House on the Prairie

Open Document