...English 3664 March 29, 2011 Gender Roles in The Scarlet Letter and The Awakening During the Victorian era, the life a woman was immensely difficult. They were considered the property of their husband, and treated as such. Women were forbidden from owning their own property, even if they were given the property from their father. In such a case, the land would be transferred in ownership to her husband. A woman’s place was in the home, to dutifully care for her husband and children. Her job was to cook, clean, and bear children. Interestingly, a wife was treated similarly to her children. Obedience toward the man of the home was necessary from both the children and the mother. In contradiction to all of the restriction and repression, the nineteenth century produced two of literatures strongest women. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Kate Chopin gave American society two women who actively defied their husbands and who possessed their own strong moral codes. With The Scarlet Letter published in 1850 and set in the seventeenth century, Nathaniel Hawthorne was taking a large risk in creating a novel detailing a woman’s adultery with the town’s minister and producing an illegitimate child in the process. Despite the treatment she receives, Hester does not waver in her promise to keep her lover secret, proving that she is a strong willful woman. As the century is coming to a close, Kate Chopin produced a work that sent shock waves through American society. The Awakening presents the story of Edna...
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...In the 19th Century women were treated significantly different than how they are treated today. During the 19th Century most women were believed to fill specific roles and were expected to act a certain way. The awakening is a book that greatly focuses on some women who submit to these roles as well as some women who broke these roles. The Awakening by Kate Chopin, written in the 19th century, is a great example of what roles women were supposed to fill and it has many female characters that exemplify these roles, which include being a mother-woman, being submissive to their husbands, and being free from the appearance of immorality. In the 19th century there was a huge emphasis on being a good wife to your husband and being a caring mother...
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...Throughout history women have been relegated to a secondary class in which reflects how they are seen and treated in society. In 1899 Kate Chopin was aware of the numerous double standards and gender roles that inhibit women, and that understanding lead her to write The Awakening, a story about a woman and her emerging sense of self, during the first wave of feminism which focused on women’s suffrage. French write Simone de Beauvoir who wrote The Second Sex which focused on the state and circumstance surrounding women from a philosophical standpoint. Today women have gained more legal and social security and standing, but continue their struggle in order to reach true equality in all aspect of life. Simone de Beauvoir focuses on themes that...
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...Ecocriticism in The Awakening Nature in The Awakening was used symbolically to represent the freedom to break free from the traditional placement of women during the nineteenth century. Although The Awakening is not typically applauded for its emphasis on “nature writing”, the direct correlation between the environment and the main character’s (Edna) choice to break free from society’s tendency to categorize women as sinners or saints. Using The Awakening and Glotfelty’s definition of ecocriticism, it will be shown that the environment plays a major part in the theme of the novel. In order to fully grasp the environmental connection between what is usually determined as a “gender” novel, because of the character’s fight for an alternative path for women, it must be realized how Kate Chopin addresses nature as an alternative escape from “good or evil.” According to Glotfelty, ecocriticism “shares the fundamental premise that human culture is connected to the physical world, affecting it and affected by it” (Glotfelty). The first connection between the physical world and The Awakening would be the fact that Edna is on an island. The island represents her physical body and mind stuck in one place. The island is described as, “a breeze blowing, choppy stiff wind that whipped water into froth. It fluttered the skirts of the two women (Edna and her friend) and kept them for a while engaged in adjusting, readjusting, tucking in, securing hair pins and hat pins” (Chopin p. 16). The...
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...During the late 1800s, the Napoleonic code was a state law that was the base foundation in terms of a marriage contract and how legal affairs would play out. The Napoleonic Code stated that the husband had full authority over his wife and her wealth because the husband would obtain both his and wife’s assets while administering the joint estate regardless of the wife’s say in the matter. Such a power struggle is seen in Edna’s marriage as she breaks free from her husband’s demanding demeanor who expects her to be submissive. Also during the that, women started to hold protests and create groups who created campaigns to further the social reforms that focused on creating more rights for women. One such way was to advertise ideas through...
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...It has been around since before the civil rights movement and before the suffragettes. The woman’s plight to be seen just as serious and strong as men and assume more prominent roles in society transcends time and place. We can see examples of it in classic literature like The Awakening by Kate Chopin and in short stories like “The Yellow Wall Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Both works, written in the late 1800s, carry examples of the age old struggle for equality. Women historically have been trivialized and seen as having “a slight hysterical tendency,” (Gilman, 1892). In “The Yellow Wall Paper”, the narrator goes mad while her husband insists that she rest all day in bed, while in The Awakening, Edna struggles to find and identity outside of her role as a mother and wife. Both women are tied to their house by the expectations of men, but this is not meant to villainize the men. Rather, it is meant to draw attention to and criticize the idea that men and women should each play into these dangerous gender roles. While some may say that this is an issue of the past, today women are still expected to fulfill those same duties as a mother and wife and those who deviate from this norm are looked down upon. One can say that they don’t believe women should only be mothers and wives, and that’s great, but until the majority of the...
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...accepting and conforming to her gender roles throughout the play as it was expected to live up to Victorian ideals. This restricted females, especially due to the patriarchal control over the household, which is represented early on in Act 1 in A Doll’s House from the stage directions; “A bell rings in the hall...Enter NORA” ,this shows that the only way to enter her own home is through the access being granted by someone else. This straight away highlights the fact that she has no key to enter her own household, leaving her powerless to make the choice of when she may enter or leave the domestic sphere. This would seem to be a bizarre concept to modern audiences as it can be seen a belittling, whereas normal to a contemporary audience, though this is difficult to generalise. By Ibsen not allowing Nora to have a key could also be interpreted as also being metaphorical, due to having no control because she is Torvalds’s possession with society locking her away from giving her no escape route out. This contrasts to Shaw’s representation of Vivie as you can infer that she has outside knowledge of the real world since she hasn’t been in a ‘doll’s house.’ This is drawn attention to from when she speaks of having been to ‘Chancery Lane’ for a month The main time Nora rejects her traditional gender role would be at the end of the play, when she has a realization, leading to leaving her family. In a sense, the final act of the play is Nora’s awakening, in which she realizes that she...
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...minority idealism began to take on a diverse shape. Minorities and women sought after change and a new type of role in society, but more than that these individuals encouraged a new public persona as well as the way they would view themselves. However, insert religion! The previous period prior to thoughts of social change came in the form of a supported sense of intellectual knowledge, in which the faith in logical religions became a vast realization, and eventually marked the separation of power between government and church. The rush for establishment of major religions quickly began to change in regard to the events that took place and the reformation during the Great Awakening. The elimination of Calvinism or simply being pre-ordained began to spread throughout the country thus, creating the exploration of new sets of values and the expansion of Puritanical views or being Protestant. The idealism resulting from this sense of overly viewed religious behavior ultimately conveyed a greater comprehension of Christianity in its entirety or merely as it is viewed and experienced today by a majority of Americans. Furthermore, African American slaves as well as Native Americans were not immune to Christianity or its ministry considering the vast concern individuals of this faith had for converting others to the religion. As much significance as the first Great Awakening manufactured on Americans of this time period, women however saw no momentous effects regarding liberation,...
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...Brianne Foster ENGL 279 Dr. Aiping Zhang Term Paper Proposal The topic I’d like to explore for my term paper is the heavy gender role/ stereotypes placed on women throughout different cultures and times. I want to bring to light the moments in which women were oppressed in all aspects of their life. I am interested in this topic because I am a woman myself and although I haven’t had to deal with all the trials and tribulations as the women of these times, this is still my history. Women have always been oppressed into a stereotype, even in today’s society there are still certain stigmas on the female gender. This issue is discussed and expressed in all forms of today’s media, education, policies and so on. Many perspectives on this issue bring forth feminism acts and organizations with goals aimed towards equal rights for men and women. Without these struggles I don’t know where I’d be in today’s society. The two texts that I have selected to write my comparison on are The Awakening by Kate Chopin and Daisy Miller by Henry James to which I’ll be able to compare the bias and misery between each woman’s struggles. The questions that my research will cover will expand on the ideals and basis of the female gender role throughout history and the main concepts as to why they are placed in those realms. Within my preliminary research I have found the repetitive oppression of the women spirit and freedom. In my paper I will present my two literature selections as support for...
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...The Awakening was published at a period in time whereby the contents of the book was considered vulgar and terrible. The book was rejected and looked down upon as being some type of scandal. The novel wasn’t recognized until after Kate Chopin dead. After her death readers began to recognize the book as being a feminist because of the fact that people began to understand the contents of the book in the newer era. The novel, “The Awakening” embodies a woman’s creativity, marriage, motherhood, and a woman’s place in society. An important part of the novel that stood out would be when Edna makes an attempt to escape the obligations and constraints of New Orleans social milieu. Every move made by Edna is caused by the tenet of society. Edna is...
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...Concept of liberty and femininity in The Yellow Wallpaper and The Awakening I decided to examine the concept of femininity and liberty in a short story “The Yellow Wall-paper” from the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman and in the book “The Awakening” from Kate Chopin. I chose these two books in order to demonstrate how society in the nineteenth century treated woman and how those woman were trying to escape from this concept. Femininity refers to set of behaviours and roles which are appropriate for women and judged by certain culture. In the nineteenth century were women expected to stay at home and wait for their husbands´ return each evening. Women should have these four attributes: piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. (Rula Quawas,2006) Women who had these attributes were considered happy and satisfied. It was also believed that there is a sharp line between home, the woman sanctuary, and the economic world because it is a hard world only for men. The Yellow Wallpaper The story begun with moving of the main hero and her husband to the colonial mansion. Her husband´s name is John and he is a high standing physician. They moved for a while because she had to undergo a rest-cure. This method of treatment of the main hero of The Yellow Wallpaper is Dr. Mitchell´s rest-cure for women which included no intellectual stimulation and no writing. Her brother is a physician as well and agrees with her husband, but she doesn’t think that the way they cure her is...
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...The second Great Awakening comes 35 years after the First Great Awakening. And it came in several episodes and different denominations. It reflected Romantism which brought about enthusiasm, emotion and super-natural beliefs; rejecting in the process anything to do with rationalism, deism and sceptism. The Great Awakening is well known for bringing a large group of people together which led to a high conversion of human belief through an enthusiastic form of preaching to the people where by with a great participation of the audience as well. It portrayed God as benevolent, and a compassionate ruler who wanted salvation for mankind rather that angry and vengeful. One major feature of the 19th century religion was religious revival. A religious...
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...Suicide is most commonly viewed as the act of giving up completely or self-destructing, probably for good reason. This decision usually leaves behind broken families and friends with no closure or explanation. This topic is touched on in literature with various opinions. One such is Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening,” where Edna Pontellier, the novel’s protagonist, brings about her own end through her eventual suicide. In her case, the significance of her suicide is ambiguous, and although published over one hundred years ago, still creates a myriad of interpretations. The most accurate of these, however, is that Edna’s suicide demonstrates her growth over the course of the novel because it was Edna’s only viable solution for herself and the protection of her husband and children, and...
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...In her daring novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin bravely exposes an unfamiliar attitude of feminism to an unprepared society in the form of Edna Pontellier. At the time, her work of fiction was not yet recognized as being respectable or even credible—due to the fact that the idea of feminism had not yet become popular. Since then, Edna Pontellier’s “awakening” has been viewed in a positive light by many modern feminist critics and described as an “intellectual and social” maturation or liberation of the self. However, while some of the symbols in which Edna’s “awakening”, overall progression, and personality may seem to exemplify and commendatory of classic feministic ideals and qualities—of freedom, independence, and equality, —a great many of them portray Edna and her egocentric doings as little more than selfish delusions causing her to lose a valuable, if conventional, life. Ultimately, the perverse behavior and deviant disposition exhibited by Edna—especially considering the standards of the time period she lived in—belie the very femininity attributed to her and, in my opinion, is the very antithesis of feminism. The term ‘feminism’ has many different uses and its meanings are often contested and changed throughout history. In the mid-to-late 1800’s, the time period in which the novel is set, feminism was used to refer to the “qualities of a woman”. Thus, with this definition and the context of the novel in mind, the analysis of Edna’s “qualities of a woman” becomes easier...
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...in societies to explicitly state the role of women and their purpose in life. Although men also had to follow certain expectations they were often excused when they failed to conform; meanwhile, for a woman it was considered taboo. In the novel The Awakening, Kate Chopin discusses the myriad of internal and external challenges that women in the Victorian time experience due to society’s expectations through the journey of the main character, Edna Pontellier. Throughout the novel, Edna struggled with conforming to society’s expectations...
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