The Coquette, written by Hannah Webster Foster in 1797, chronicles the life of an affluent woman in the 18th century. There are a few themes that are presented throughout the whole novel: correspondence, sexual freedom, and ideal womanhood. Elizabeth Whitman has been an icon of American history since the 19th century because of her bravery and contempt for the caged position of women in society. It is stated that the tombstone of Elizabeth Whitman is a popular tourist attraction; “her grave was a popular destination for New England travelers, who beat paths to the far corner of Danvers’s Old South Cemetery through the entire nineteenth century.” (Waterman)
The Coquette was loosely based on the story of Elizabeth Whitman, born in 1752 and dead in 1788. Women were typically not objects of novels because women were not deemed important by society, therefore it is surprising when a novel about a woman becomes very
popular among the general public. The Coquette was advertised as a dime novel in the late 17 and early 1800s but come the turn of the 21st century, it is one of the most popular novels about women’s liberation and sexual freedom. Since The Coquette is based on true events, there must be a primary or credible secondary source; in this case, the epistolary novel was compiled using themes from the original letters written by Elizabeth Whitman. There were only 15 letters that remain of the correspondence between Elizabeth Whitman and Joel Barlow that exist in the Baldwin Family Papers. (Waterman) In her novel The Romance of the Association, Caroline Wells Healy Dall had to personally contact the Baldwin family in order to review the original letters. This is why correspondence is so important in novels of this time period. ...
... middle of paper ...
...est stick since she lost her life and her reputation, the two most important things to her. However I would argue that the punishments were the same, Sanford lost the two most important things to him as well, Eliza and his money. Depending on one’s view point, it may be better to die than to live without the love of your life.
Works Cited
Castiglione, Balclesar. "The Book of the Coutier ." Castiglione, Balclesar. The Third Book. London: Norton & Company, 1523. 147-187.
Elizabeth Whitman Grave. Peabody, n.d. Photograph.
Foster, Hanna Webster. The Coquette. Oxford University Press, 1797. ebook.
Waterman, Bryan. "Coquetry and Correspondence in Revolutionary-Era: Reading Elizabeth Whitman’s Letters." Early American Literature (2011): 541-563.
Wenska Jr., Walter P. "The Coquette AND THE AMERICAN DREAM OF FREEDOM." Early American Literature (1977): 243-256.
Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman is a historical fiction diary because it is about an adolescent girl writing about her life from 1290 to 1291.
" American Literature 58.2 (May 1986): 181-202. Wright, Richard. A.
Eder, Richard. "Pain on the Face of Middle America." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski. Detroit: Gale Research Publishing, Inc., 1986. 103.
The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton narrates the tribulations of an unmarried woman in post-revolutionary America. The author Hannah Webster Foster uses the story of Miss Wharton as an allegory of female moral decay. The highly patriarchal demands that women be submissive, domestic, and married. However, the protagonist Eliza Wharton has conflicting ideas of her expectations within the society. She is highly intelligent and yearns for self-determination. Though the novel is about seduction, Foster significantly altered the basic structure of novels at the time by relating it from the female perspective. The result is a novel that explores several significant themes in post-revolutionary America among them, the existence, and the need for female education.
Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print.
...n American Literature. By Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 387-452. Print.
Litz, A. Walton. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement 2, Part 2. New York: Charles
Lauter, Paul, vol. 1, 3rd ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Pub: by Houghton Mifflin, 19
Women in the Victorian Era, and analysis of “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner and “The Storm” by Kate Chopin.
Women have played an important role in American literature. Unfortunately, this role was often negative, without cause to be so. Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby are examples of American literature in which women are needlessly vilified.
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.
In this essay, some characteristics of this view of women, often called "The Cult of True Womanhood", will be explored with reference to Thomas R. Dew "Dissertation on the Characteristic Differences Between the Sexes (1835). Some of the feminist developments arising in conflict with this ideal will also be traced. Then, in accordance with my view that literature and culture is often interrelated, I will proceed by with an analysis of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" as a critique of the gender roles of the time, commenting on its symbolism as well as its plot development.
Works Cited “American Literature 1865-1914.” Baym 1271. Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
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.
Following the Enlightenment, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote the feminist novel The Vindication of the Rights of Woman. In this novel she applied rights to females that had formerly been reserved to males, such as unalienable rights. Her novel impacted different areas of society. Wollstonecraft called for the advancement of women’s rights in areas such as education, work, and politics. She also proposes that women are just as capable as men and have a far greater purpose than simply to be pleasing to men. Her novel became a bestseller in the summer of 1792.1 After reading her novel, many women applied her views to their lives to the greatest extent possible in the time period in which they lived. Mary Wollstonecraft’s novel was the first major stand for women’s rights creating the feminist movement in Great Britain and consequently the Americas.