Gender Roles and Class in Richardson's 'The Getting of Wisdom'

820 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The role of school in character building

Richardson’s exploration of the effect of clothing on Laura’s education in Chapter 10 of The Getting of Wisdom, first published in 1910, reveals the intersection between class and gender roles within Australian society. This passage highlights Richardson’s theme of the destruction of innocence, as social expectations begin to motivate Laura’s actions within the text. The changing characterisation of Laura throughout the text emphasises the role of the boarding school in the imposition of gender roles. Notably, Laura wishes she could have clad herself in “sacks” before her experiences at the school (Richardson 169). This signifies how the school, and her fellow students, influence Laura’s development. At first, Laura is “unrestrained by gender, …show more content…

Richardson utilises “narratorial distance” to treat Laura, the “subject” of the novel, with irony (Treagus 204). Additionally, the use of third-person narration serves to prevent sympathetic reaction to Laura. The passage supports this, as Laura’s fears of social exclusion are only referred to as “troubles” (Richardson 169). While Richardson trivialises Laura’s reactions to her social ostracisation, the destruction of her innocence is the lasting result of these experiences. Laura’s fear of embarrassment contrasts with her initial inability to comprehend the “elusive code of restraint” that governs the actions of her peers (O’Loughlin 88). These social pressures become key motivations for Laura’s later actions. This includes her refusal to wear the purple dress, due to “the views held by her companions” (Richardson 171). However, Laura’s later actions, which mirror those of her tormentors, reveal the transformation of her character. Accordingly, Laura felt no “sympathy” for a girl that underwent the “same experience” of social ostracisation (Richardson 167). This highlights the negative direction of Laura’s development. Richardson’s rejection of common literary devices of the period supports the importance of this theme in the text. Richardson challenges the bildungsroman genre, (Pratt 7) as she “mocks earlier moral tales” set in schools (Treagus 201). Through the subversion of traditional narrative direction, Richardson undermines the same social pressures that influence Laura’s development. The destruction of innocence within The Getting of Wisdom reveals how Richardson attempts to criticise the imposition of gender roles through her narrative

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of 'Our Secret' By Laura Griffin

    667 Words  | 2 Pages

    The essay begins with Griffin across the room from a woman called Laura. Griffin recalls the lady taking on an identity from long ago: “As she speaks the space between us grows larger. She has entered her past. She is speaking of her childhood.” (Griffin 233) Griffin then begins to document memories told from the lady about her family, and specifically her father. Her father was a German soldier from around the same time as Himmler. Griffin carefully weaves the story of Laura with her own comments and metaphors from her unique writing style.

    Read More

  • Social Class in A & P by John Updike

    372 Words  | 1 Pages

    As the student begins his essay, he points out that Sammy is part of the lower class structure. He is an “eighteen-year-old boy who is working as a checkout clerk in an A&P in a small New England town five miles from the beach” (2191). While working an afternoon shift on Thursday, he notices “these girls in nothing but bathing suits” (2191) enter the store. It is in this scene that the student begins to identify the differences between the group of girls and Sammy.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles in Little House on the Prairie

    2315 Words  | 5 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Sharon Olds' The Possessive

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon. There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario. What happens when little girls grow up? Do they rebel? Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In The Naked Citadel, By Susan Faludi

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    Susan Faludi unfolds a world of male domination and its interrelationships within its confines and places women in the center of her story. Indeed it truly took an extremely self-confident woman to even entertain the idea of entering an all-male academic college like the Citadel, whose front gate practically reads like that of a young boys fort that makes the bold statement, “No girls allowed they have coodies.” Shannon Falkner was a strong willed woman with an immense amount of confidence to completely omit her gender on the Citadel application to enter this college. As if gender was not an issue, or should have never been an issue in

    Read More

  • Parallel Experiences of Three Troubled Women in Cunningham's, The Hours

    1069 Words  | 3 Pages

    Laura Brown is a fragile middleclass housewife and mother in 1951. She lives a miserable life trying to play the model suburban housewife. Throughout The Hours, Laura is reading Mrs. Dalloway, which is Virginia's novel. Her obvious mental illness doesn't allow her to always connect and understand her environment. Situations that seem simple to the average person, such as making a cake, are beyond difficu...

    Read More

  • The Outsider in Hamlet, by William Shakespeare and Persuasion, by Jane Austen

    2229 Words  | 5 Pages

    Within the plot of Persuasion we are introduced to the characters through the eyes and judgements of others, the perceptions of others serves as the perfect window in understanding the place of a character in their society as an outsider or an insider. The reader is first introduced to Anne Elliot, of Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, as the middle child of Sir Walter Elliot; a member of a socially important family. From an outside perspective this places Anne as an insider to a higher social class; opening connections with people of influence. Consequently, as the plot continues it is clear in the structure of the flow of information that she is no priority to those around her. “Anne with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character, which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister: her word had no weight; h...

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Learned Ladies

    1054 Words  | 3 Pages

    Les Femmes Savantes The Learned Ladies is an astounding play. As each new character enters time transforms characters are bedazzled, enchanted and wigged we know we are sharing the stage with royalty. The women’s gowns are extremely detailed with hoop shirts to make them puffy the men are wearing exceptionally detailed waistcoats. This comical drama is set in the living room or “salon” of the family. This plays plot is focused on one major couples chaotic and forbidden love. The characters are joined by blood and lead by the controlling wife, Philamonte (Maya Jackson) and her weak spouse Chrysale (Edward Brown III). Jackson’s voice is directing with a profound tone that would have the capacity to stop anybody dead in their tracks. It is not

    Read More

  • Reality And Reality In Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie

    1447 Words  | 3 Pages

    She is a shy, quiet girl who keeps herself at a distance. She loves glass figurines and prides herself on them. To her brother, she is seen as crippled because she cannot walk well and is socially awkward. This results in Laura’s reality being different than the rest of the family’s because she closes herself off into a space where it is only her. Amanda wants the best for Laura, for her to have a husband or finish business school, because she wants Laura to get out of the house and get living. However, Laura does not want to live in that world, and it is shown when she skipped her business classes and through her interaction with Jim, her high school crush. Jim is the only person who is able to take Laura out of her own weird reality, and bring her into the reality of an ordinary girl. Laura breaks through her reality when she talks about the unicorn horn that Jim broke off her glass figurine, she tells Jim that, “It doesn’t matter. . . . [smiling] I’ll just imagine he had an operation. The horn was removed to make him feel less—freakish!” (Williams, 2009). Therefore, Laura being with Jim makes her feel a little less odd. This brings Laura out of her own reality for a bit, but then she retreats back into it when she finds out that Jim is engaged to someone else right after he kisses her. He broke her free of her own reality for a bit, just like how he broke the horn off of the

    Read More

  • Loss of Innocence in The Flowers, by Alice Walker

    1007 Words  | 3 Pages

    Innocence is something always expected to be lost sooner or later in life, an inevitable event that comes of growing up and realizing the world for what it truly is. Alice Walker’s “The Flowers” portrays an event in which a ten year old girl’s loss of innocence after unveiling a relatively shocking towards the end of the story. Set in post-Civil War America, the literary piece holds very particular fragments of imagery and symbolism that describe the ultimate maturing of Myop, the young female protagonist of the story. In “The Flowers” by Alice Walker, the literary elements of imagery, symbolism, and setting “The Flowers” help to set up a reasonably surprising unveiling of the gruesome ending, as well as to convey the theme of how innocence disappears as a result of facing the harsh reality of this world.

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Men and Women: Jane Eyre and The Handmaid's Tale

    1786 Words  | 4 Pages

    This twentieth-century tradition of dystopian novels is a possible influence, with classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 standing prominent. The pessimism associated with novels of this genre—where society is presented as frightening and restrictive—exposes the gender inequality between men and women to be deleterious. An aspect of the way male/female relationships are presented in both texts is the repression of female sexuality by men, possibly stemming from a subliminal fear of women attaining power in a male-dominated society. Brocklehurst—a possible reflection of Bront’s Evangelical minister at Cowan Bridge, her own poorly run school—is a male authoritative figure whose relationship with the girls at Lowood is one of imposed tyranny. He means to “tame and humble” them through deprivations and restrictions, but such removal of liberties like cutting off the girls’ hair, consequentially robbing them of female attributes, can be interpreted as the male repression of feminine sexuality.... ...

    Read More

  • Jane Eyre Defying Women Essay

    978 Words  | 2 Pages

    In her younger years, Jane shows that girls do not need to follow society’s normalities through the defiance of her aunt, Mrs. Reed. As a young orphan, Jane lives with her aunt and her three children, and due to Jane’s “plain looks” and “quiet yet passionate character,” she is disliked among the entire Reed family (Gao). Her cousin, John, constantly reminds her of her social standing, calling her a “dependent” who should not “live with gentlemen’s children” like her cousins (Bronte 10). Rather than acting in accordance with her cousin, Jane, in rage of how she is treated with “miserable cruelty” (Bronte 36), Jane compares him to a “murderer...a slave driver...like the Roman emperors” (Bronte 10). Because of her refusal to submit to John Reed’s aggressiveness and accept that she is lesser than him and his family, Jane is punished for the night by her Aunt Reed. Mrs. Reed’s punishment of Jane demonstrates her part in the oppression ‘machine.’ Mrs. Reed should have understood Jane’s refusal to be docile, being a woman herself, but ...

    Read More

  • Coming of Age in Alice Munro’s "Boys and Girls"

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls,” there is a time line in a young girl’s life when she leaves childhood and its freedoms behind to become a woman. The story depicts hardships in which the protagonist and her younger brother, Laird, experience in order to find their own rite of passage. The main character, who is nameless, faces difficulties and implications on her way to womanhood because of gender stereotyping. Initially, she tries to prevent her initiation into womanhood by resisting her parent’s efforts to make her more “lady-like”. The story ends with the girl socially positioned and accepted as a girl, which she accepts with some unease.

    Read More

  • The Evolution of the Role of Women in British and American Literature

    1818 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.

    Read More

  • The Problem With Feminism Is The Misunderstanding Of Its Definition

    729 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a graduate of the Grier School, an all girls boarding school, one constantly gets inquiries about the nature of her education. It begins with a gesture of respect to gauge how she will react to the questions everyone yearns to know the answer to. The most common question Grier graduates hear is, “what is it like to go to school without boys?” Graduates hastily defend their alma mater with praise and insight about its empowering and positive atmosphere. Most graduates do not mention boys in their answers. They rephrase the question to the one that no one asks: “What is it like to go to school with all girls?” Most people do not realize the significance in changing two words of a question until they are the ones answering. Grier’s education is not about excluding males; it is about an education. Yet, the question remains centered around the patriarchal dimension of society that insists women cannot function the same without the presence of men. Grier’s teaching of feminism was not from a textbook or class; it came from series of realizations from shared experiences.

    Read More

More about Gender Roles and Class in Richardson's 'The Getting of Wisdom'

Open Document