Stifled Women in The Yellow Wallpaper, Rappaccini's Daughter, and Beloved
A connection can be drawn among the stories listed above regarding women who live as prisoners. Beatrice, of Rappaccini's Daughter, is confined to a garden because of her father's love of science, and she becomes the pawn to several men's egos. The woman of The Yellow Wallpaper is trapped by her own family's idea of how she should conduct herself, because her mood and habit of writing are not "normal" to them. Sethe, of Beloved, carries the burden of her past and also the past of all slaves. She is unwelcome in her community and a prisoner in her own home, where she is forced to confront these memories of slavery. All three of these women are viewed by society as crazy, evil, or both. The "prisons" in which these women live are constructed by their family, their history, or even themselves.
Beatrice's prison is probably the most obvious. Her father caused her to be poisonous and dependant upon a poisonous flower. As a result, she was confined to the garden. There are other, less apparent entanglements which Beatrice encountered. To the outside world, she was often misunderstood. Giovanni, who was her only real link to the outside world, was constantly in a state of confusion regarding Beatrice. He knew not whether she is an angel or a demon. In the end, he was convinced that she was purely evil, and much to her dismay, he betrays her. Due to her father's abnormal use of her as an experiment, these misunderstandings by the outside world were inevitable for Beatrice. Luedtke states, "Is Beatrice poisonous, sexual, or demonic? Or pure, spiritual, and angelic. She is both. It is for Giovanni to solve the riddle."(177) However, Giovanni w...
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...iteracy and the Death of the Narrative in Hawthorne's 'The Birthmark'." ATQ 9.4 (1995): 269-82.
Stallman, Laura. Survey of Criticism of 'Rappaccini's Daughter' by Nathaniel Hawthorne {with class response and discussion}. 29 Many 2000 <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/eng372/rappcrit.htm>.
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Luedtke, Luther. Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Romance of the Orient.Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989.
Schmudde, Carol. "The Haunting of 124." African American Review.26:3(1992): 409-415.
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When the news came of his father’s death, Hawthorne’s mother withdrew into her upstairs bedroom, coming out only rarely during the remaining forty years of her life. The boy and his two sisters lived in almost complete isolation from her and from each other (29).
Hawthorne, Nathaniel.”The Birth-Mark.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 340-351. Print.
Since ours is an age that has found irony, ambiguity, and paradox to be central not only in literature but in life, it is not surprising that Hawthorne has seemed to us one of the most modern of nineteenth century American writers. The bulk and general excellence of the great outburst of Hawthorne criticism of the past decade attest to his relevance for us(54).
Booker T. Washington was born on April 5, 1856. Like many blacks around this time, he was born into slavery. He was born on a small farm in the Virginia back country. His master was James Burroughs. Mr. Burroughs had a wife name Elizabeth and 13 children. Booker's mother's name was Jane and she had two other children besides Booker. He spent his first nine years of his life in the plantation kitchen. There his mother prepared the master's family and the slaves food. He mainly wore hand me downs from his brother John, and got his first pair of shoes at eight.
Washington was able to attend Hampton Institute, which allowed him to work as a janitor to pay for his attendance. By receiving an education from the institution he was able to teach other colored people, and become this great leader among the black community. He felt, as colored people should only attend trade or industrial schools, and that is the type of school he opened in Tuskegee. Booker T. Washington was criticized by many pertaining to his views on education among his fellow colored people. W.E.B Du Bios was one of those critics; in his novel souls of black folks he talks about how Booker T. Washington was being submissive to the white people. Du Bios felt as Washington “surrender their civil and political rights”; Mr. Washington was okay with accepting an inferior position in order to gain economic status in the long run. Although Du Bios felt that Mr. Washington was submissive, Du Bios also called his program unique. Although Washington does want the colored people to advance, the things he asked of colored people contradict his motives. Du Bios challenges the things that Mr. Washington asked of them, which were to give up political power, insistence on civil rights, and higher education of the youth. Du Bios says that with this being asked of the colored people would lead to the disfranchisement of the Negro, a legal creation of a distinct status of civil inferiority for the Negro, and a steady withdraw of aid from institution for higher education of the Negro. What Washington called for would help black gain economic status short term, but the lack of equal opportunity with blacks ' education would keep them in an inferior place. Colored people should be able to learn everything the white people learn. Black people should not be subjected to just trade and industrial
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature 's Ancestral House: Another Look At 'The Yellow Wallpaper '." Women 's Studies 12.2 (1986): 113. Academic Search Complete. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.
To understand the message of “The Birthmark”, we must first understand the events and circumstances that took place in Hawthorn’s time period which most likely prompted him to write this short story. Nathaniel Hawthorn was a 19th century novelist who is perhaps best known for writing The Scarlet Letter. In Hawthorn’s time, a new belief system called positivism was on the rise. Positivism exalted science. This ne...
Nathaniel Hawthorne's Rappaccini's Daughter is perhaps the most complex and difficult of all Hawthornes short stories, but also the greatest. Nathaniel Hawthorne as a poet, has been characterized as a man of low emotional pressure who adopted throughout his entire life the role of an observer. He was always able to record what he felt with remarkable words but he lacked force and energy. Hawthorne's personal problem was his sense of isolation. He thought of isolation as the root of all evil. Therefore, he made evil the theme of many of his stories. Hawthorne's sense of the true human included intellectual freedom, passion and tenderness (Kaul 26).
Booker T. Washington was a man beyond words. His perseverance and will to work were well known throughout the United States. He rose from slavery, delivering speech after speech expressing his views on how to uplift America's view of the Negro. He felt that knowledge was power, not just knowledge of "books", but knowledge of agricultural and industrial trades. He felt that the Negro would rise to be an equal in American society through hard work. Washington founded a school on these principles, and it became the world's leader in agricultural and industrial education for the Negro. As the world watched him put his heart and soul into his school, Tuskegee Institute, he gained great respect from both the white and black communities. Many of the country's white leaders agreed with his principals, and so he had a great deal of support. Booker T. Washington was a great man. He put his own needs aside in order to build the reputation of an entire race. He didn't do it by accusing and putting blame on others, but instead through hard work. Booker T. Washington cleared the way for the black community to fully enter the American society.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper'" Women's Studies. 12 (1986): 113-128.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental Feminism and Literature's Ancestral House: Another Look at 'The Yellow Wallpaper.'" Women's Studies 12:2 (1986): 113-128.
Booker T Washington was one of the foremost African American leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He founded Tuskegee University which was an all black school. During this time period blacks were discriminated against so, being an African American, Booker made his own school where no one could judge them. Many African Americans supported Booker because he encouraged colored people to stand up for themselves and deal with segregation as long as whites allowed them economic progress. On September 18, 1895, he made his famous speech called “ The Atlanta Compromise “, which made him very well know because of its inspirational outlook. Throughout his life Booker was a very successful man and died on November 14, 1915.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. " Rappaccini's Daughter." Nathaniel Hawthorne's Tales. Ed. James McIntosh. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1987.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”, is the story of a crazed scientist whose strive for perfection not only leads to the death of his beautiful wife, but the attempt of man to have power over nature. It follows the story of Aylmer and his obsession with removing the birthmark off his beautiful wife, Georgiana. “His unnatural fixation to his wife’s birthmark even consumes him in his sleep as he dreams of cutting it off much like scraping an apple off its skin.” (Snodgrass 29). This narrative explores the themes of perfection, and the conflict between science and the natural world.