Charlotte Temple Is A Seduction Novel Written By Susanna Rowson Essay

Women who had no claim to wealth or beauty received the harshest of realities in America’s Victorian era. Author Charlotte Bronte – from America’s Victorian era – examines and follows the life of a girl born into these conditions in her gothic novel Jane Eyre (of which the main character’s name

One major argument throughout the book is that religion and the color of the skin effect social norms and how they are enacted but I also think it brought new prospects for women by the seventeenth century. For example, in the case of Eliza Lucas Pinckney. Eliza Lucas Pinckney has a new job that forced her “to master both male and female roles within her culture"

Hannah W. Foster’s The Coquette is a young woman’s path navigating the expectations of society while not surrendering her own wants and needs. Marriages, in the eighteenth century, are based on financial security and social rank, not love. Women, especially those who did not have a dowry, married a man of wealth and connections. The sad, tragic tale of Eliza Wharton validates the fact that defying expectations in the eighteenth century caused women to fall from grace.

Charlotte Temple was a novel written by Susanna Rowson, in 1791 in England under the title Charlotte; or, a Tale of Truth. Although it is not technically an American but British novel, Charlotte Temple became extremely popular in America after the America Revolution. Rowson arrived in Philadelphia in 1793 in hope for better financial fortunes. She was successful. In 1794, Charlotte Temple was republished in America and became the country’s first best-seller. In the novel, Susanna Rowson frequently interrupts the story to addresses her readers directly. She reveals that her target audience for her novel is as she addresses them “dear girls.” She, also, addresses men or older women who might be reading the book, suggesting that she anticipated

The American novels Charlotte Temple and The Scarlet Letter are similar in many ways. Some of the most obvious are that both of the novels revolve around the lives of ruined women. In Charlotte Temple, Charlotte is seduced by the charming solder John Montraville, who singlehandedly manages to tarnish her reputation by leaving her a young, pregnant, outcast. Hester Prynne also goes through public humiliation for her actions with Arthur Dimmesdale. However, these women are greatly affected by the men in their lives, who are much of the cause of the women's turmoil.

Women living in the Post-Revolutionary Society of America faced problems not explained or cared about by many, except for the women themselves. Most women in these time periods lived under the subjection of a man, and normally, this was the root of the problem; and for most women, the root of all evil. Hannah Webster Foster was not the exception to this rule and she was quite a bold woman: one who wrote down the struggles of women so that everyone would realize the complications of living in a male dominated world, under the seducing power of the assumed innocent man. These ideas of a woman have been notably compared to the actual nation of the United States, as a new country, still under a form of authority from other countries. The life

The novel advocates female rights to a certain degree. This is shown when Marlena disobeys August when he gave her a command. I believe back in the 1930s women had to subject to their husbands but, Marlena seems to be to one in control – “ “What do you think you’re doing? You are not giving that to him, Now sit down!” / She walks straight to the gaunt man, picks up his hand, and plants the sandwich in it. Then she marches off to scattered applause and whistles from the working men’s side of the tent”

With Susanna Rowson’s publication of Charlotte Temple and its acceptance within society as the bestselling book in America, there is evidence that the responsibilities, such as writing, that women could perform increased. However, the contents of Charlotte Temple itself suggests that women continued to be viewed as weak by society. Not only is the titular character, Charlotte, indecisive which allows herself to be seduced by a man against her better judgement, she also becomes so overwhelmed by what occurs around her that she often faints, a symbol of her innate weakness. When Montraville, her seducer, attempts to usher her into his carriage that will take them to America, “The chaise [drives] off. She [shrieks], and faint[s] into the arms of her betrayer” (48).

The complete transformation continues after she is abandoned, and as “once an object of desire”, Charlotte’s “emaciated appearance” enables her from being valuable in any way, as the main purpose for her capture, pleasure, is unable to be satisfied (76). The connection between Charlotte’s corporeal appearance to the society's culture and ideology, solidify the depletion of her worth throughout her stay in America. She is seen as an “object” of “desire” and with no appeal left, she is of no use to the men in the novel. Rowson’s final depiction of Charlotte’s loss of self reflects in her pregnancy and how the unborn child becomes an “innocent witness” and physical image of her worth and “heir to […] shame” (62). The body is bought for nothing and so is worth nothing to be respected and acknowledged. Charlotte is detached from humanity at the hands of others and is merely an object to be used when one

Although she at times opposes what would be expected, like when she decided to pay the extra shilling to the man carrying her trunk, against Mr. Grummage’s orders (14). She always easily goes back to the fact that she “ had been trained to obey, educated to accept” (21). Charlotte dressed like a young woman and had never even thought about dressing differently (5). She “ certainly wanted to be a lady” (5).

Charlotte Temple is introduced in the novel as a moral girl with a good foundation of genuine love from her family. This moral foundation is evident in her countenance. Even after Charlotte has compromised her morals to run away with her seducer, Montraville, she maintains this look of innocence. Montraville’s companion, Belcour, turns his romantic

Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre embraces many feminist views in opposition to the Victorian feminine ideal. Charlotte Bronte herself was among the first feminist writers of her time, and wrote this book in order to send the message of feminism to a Victorian-Age Society in which women were looked upon as inferior and repressed by the society in which they lived. This novel embodies the ideology of equality between a man and woman in marriage, as well as in society at large. As a feminist writer, Charlotte Bronte created this novel to support and spread the idea of an independent woman who works for herself, thinks for herself, and acts of her own accord.

Literature has historically been a means of passing traditions down, providing entertainment, inspiring creative ideas, and transferring knowledge through several generations. In society, literature can be embraced for its innovation or condemned for the values it intently expresses against societal, political, and even religious views. Social criticism in literature is meant to directly or subtly call out the flaws in the social structure in an attempt to create awareness or evoke reforms. Many literary works invent characters who either gladly embrace gender and sexuality norms or are predisposed to them and live unconsciously, but are ultimately ruined in the end as a means to show the issue with definitive terms that categorize individuals. In 1791, British-American novelist Susanna Rowson published her novel “Charlotte Temple” in England, and later it published in 1794 in the United

With an attempt to distinguish between the old and the new, Charlotte Bronte creates the character of Bertha Mason as the exhibition of female repression and desire frequently found in the East. Bertha Rochester is the emblem of Eastern society, one which the British see as static and barbaric, and Jane Eyre is representative of the Western Civilization. In Reaches of Empire, Suvendrini Perera argues that "if the barely human prisoner caged in the Thornfield attic is the truest expression of women's anger and aspiration . . . [it is overlooked] that she is also the racial Other incarnate - a bestial, violent creature with an inordinate sexual appetite, caught in the colonized West Indies and confined 'for her own good' by a master who has appropriated both her body and her wealth" (82). If the reader only sees Bertha as the surrogate of Jane, one neglects to take note of the enriching importance of the text's suppression of Bertha. Charlotte Bronte presents Bertha as a sexually vigorous woman. This can be seen when Rochester indirectly describes

In Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason is a symbol of female oppression, and the confining roles of women in marriages. Bronte depicts Jane as a young woman in attempt to set an example for others by dodging conformity, and expose false stereotypes, marriage and submission to Rochester are counterintuitive to her goals and morals. Bertha serves as a warning to Jane by displaying the effects of marriage. As a woman who had been oppressed and dominated because of her marriage, Bertha symbolizes the damaging effects marriage in a male dominated society on a woman’s individuality and sanity. Bertha is presented as the “madwoman in the attic” by Bronte, her insanity is a dramatization of the ramifications of marriage by personifying the thoughts of women in the victorian era. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette is tricked into a loveless marriage for monital purposes because of society’s views on femininity which is females are meant to be passive (Anderson, 1982). This common perception on women is what leads Antoinette and many other women to drift into unhappy marriages, and the greater consequence being they lose themselves due to their forced