Analysis Of The Poem ' The Angel Of The House '

Judith Sargent Murray’s On the Equality of the Sexes reveals the struggles women had in the 17th-18th centuries when it came to equal education opportunities. Women were expected to become people of domestication while men had many opportunities to expand their minds and be ambitious, and be leaders. Women were expected to focus on taking care of their family, not to have minds of their own. They wanted change.

During Colonial Times, women were not permitted to get an education because they were only relegated to learning domestic skills. As time went by, women were slowly allowed to attend school but were once again limited to the subjects they were able to learn and they were only taught certain hours of the day. Over time, many cities did not have enough money to build two schools, so both boys and girls attended the same schools. As Myra and David Sadker wrote, “Entering by two separate doors, boys and girls went directly to their assigned single-sex area. Sometimes they went to different floors, or boys went to one side of the building and girls to the other. Frequently the girls were taught by women and the boys by men, so they continued to learn in their own sex-segregated worlds” (Sadker 343). Many critics thought that having both girls and boys attend school would have

The text ‘The Daughters of England’, is a book written to provide guidance for young women, pertaining to their character and behaviour; the book creates the framework for the role of women in the household. It instructs that women must offer a virtuous influence on men - as wives, mothers, and daughters - as part of their role within society. Estimated to have been written in 1842, in London, ‘Daughters of England’ was penned by Sarah Stickney Ellis; a popular author of Victorian conduct literature. Ellis’ popularity implies that the source was widely circulated at the time, thus represents an important view of contemporary society. This document reveals to us the ideals expected of middle class women of the time, and the principles that were envisioned for them, relating in particular to the ‘separate spheres’ ideology.

Articles written during a specific period gives the future population an idea of the issues present during that time. Before the United States became independent, woman education was limited to the skill needed to be a good wife and proper mother. Particularly, upper-class woman were the only ones that had the resources to gain an education. Most middle and lower class focus primarily on the education of their males. European education influence Colonial America’s educational system. Since there weren’t any establish convents schools in the colonies, tutors were primarily hired and later on schools were incorporated. During the first years of schooling, new England girls went to a coed school called “dame school”. In the dame school, girls were thought to knit and sew. Many girls got the chance to go to the town school. However, some town school in new England prohibited girls from attending. In the south, girls got the

In the early nineteenth century, women were expected to be, “‘angels in the house,’ loving, self-sacrificing, and chaste wives, mothers and daughters or they are… ultimately doomed” (King et al. 23). Women of this time were supposed to be domestic creatures and not tap so far into their intellectual abilities (King et al.). The role of women in the nineteenth century is described:

Throughout the colonial period education was limited to both men and women, but was even more limited to women. There was a gap in education between males and females for education. Males were more likely to go to school than females due to the facts that you had to pay for schooling. There was also the fact a woman 's education depended on their race, class, and location.

The Veldt is about a boy and girl who get spoiled by a house. Soon the mom feels displaced and tells the dad that the house should be shut down for some time. The son disagrees about shutting down the house a lot. When they are about to leave the son and daughter convince the parents to play in the nursery for a while longer. When they are playing the call for the parents and lock them in the nursery with a pride of lions.

Social standing, and moral values were vital elements in Victorian society, and the fundamental doctrine of establishing this ideology, began at home. The home provided a refuge from the rigour, uncertainty, anxiety, and potential violence of the outside world. (P, 341) A woman’s role was to provide a safe, stable, and well-organised environment for their husbands and families. However, change was on the horizon with an underlying movement of business and domestic changes both home and abroad, with industrialization, and the suffragist movement. Women were beginning to gain autonomy and began to grasp their opportunities, thus significantly curtailing male supremacy and the definable acceptable ‘role’ of the woman.

During the Victorian era, a woman’s influence was restricted mainly to domestic spheres, being the angel of the house and tireless supporter of her husband. These gender roles were societally enforced, as women lacked the necessary rights to move up financially or socially without a husband. For women, the only possible moral actions come from choosing to stay pure or being lured by temptation, thereby becoming immoral. In two texts, Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” and Dickens’ Little Dorrit, young women are presented as lessons adhering to this morality, being rewarded for purity and servitude or punished for perceived immorality. Women were supposed to restrain themselves from any temptation, becoming subservient to a husband as the angel of

In nineteenth century England, the lives of men and women were completely different. The women had very few - or no - rights and the man had absolute power over his wife and children. He even had the rights to his wife's income or heritage! The only acceptable way for a woman to lead her life was to be a social character, a supporting wife and loving mother, so to speak an "angel in the house". The term "the angel in the house" refers to Coventry Patmore's poem with the same name. The poem depicts the ideal of a loving, unselfish, (sexually) passive and sensitive woman, who was religious and devoted to please her husband: "Man must be please; but him to please, is woman's

Education plays a great role in distinguishing women from women or men from men. In the past, it was uncommon for a woman to be educated. With this in mind, if a lady was educated, she was held high in the eyes of men. A woman’s main role during this time was to befriend her husband and to host her husband’s dinner parties. Due to this, men loved educated women because those who are educated could hold witty conversations. If a male is married to a female who is educated, he is held at a great standard because his dinner parties tend to be successful. In other words, having an educated wife during this time period is equivalent to having a trophy wife. Daniel Defoe emphasizes why women should be educated in his essay, The Education of Women. Because Defoe bases his argument off of many presuppositions that do not hold true today, Defoe unconvincingly posits that women should only be educated in order to be a trophy wife to their husbands.

Jane Eyre is a novel written by Charlotte Brontë. It is distinctly a female Bildungsroman, as it follows the progress and growth of Jane’s character on her quest for selfhood and independence in a society that tries its best to impress upon her the roles and expectations of women in the Victorian era (which is neatly packaged in the figure of the ‘Angel-in-the-house’.) This is something with which this essay seeks to engage by looking at female figures which feature prominently in Jane’s life, how those who embrace the figure of ‘Angel-in-the-house’ are treated and viewed, versus those who do not. Furthermore, important male figures will also be looked at in order to understand Jane’s own feelings to the ‘Angel-in-the-house’ figure and how she approaches it, as well as how the Byronic hero might relate – if it even does.

When delving into the content of Rich’s essay, the author clearly indicates her focus on the gender imbalance in education and how that impacts the lives of women. Women’s education has been treated as an addition to the education of men, resulting in university and high school curriculum that does not “provide the kind of knowledge for women, the knowledge of Womankind, whose experience has been so profoundly different than Mankind” (Rich 389). This limited view has influenced the way in which education is taught in regards to gender, leaving women to know next to nothing about the history of their gender. Ignorance about their past leaves women with no knowledge about the gender they belong to and how they

“Ballad of the Landlord” is a poem by Langston Hughes that shows the struggles of a black man in a white society. There are opposing forces that make this black man suffer and he gets no retribution or any justice for the things that the people accuse him of. Through each of these voices the poem is thoroughly explained and can be analysed in such a way. The forces in this poem is the tenant, landlord, police, and the press. Each one of these forces shows the racial struggles of an innocent black man.

Coventry Patmore’s “The Angel in the House” of 1854 depicts the quintessential role of “The Angel” through a husband’s standpoint, during Queen Victoria’s reign in the 19th Century. The Angel was an idealization of a role given to the middle and upper class housewife of Great Britain during the Victorian era. The Angel served her family and household, who would grow submissive to her husband while remaining innocent about the realities of the outside world. These women where glorified to a level of perfection in her home and praised the values of maternal conduct, the reason she was given the name “Angel”. Patmore designed this godly figure resulting from his estranged fifteen-year marriage with wife Emily August Andrews. “The Angel in the House”, written through Patmore’s point of view, allows the reader to take a stance in hopes of siding with Patmore and the women’s true role to benefit the man. Coventry Patmore is saying “The Angel”, an extreme version of today’s trophy wife, realistically is nothing without the male on her side. She has a duty to be perfect that allows the husband to expand in his ventures without getting in his way. “The Angel in the House” unwraps from a love story into a depth of the harsh reality of women in this time. It also allows for the reader to identify with Patmore on this issue.