Mary Ellen Walker Harper Published A Wealth Of Short Stories

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.

Frances Ellen Walker Harper published a wealth of short stories, poetry, essays, and novels in the middle to late 1800s. She was born into a politically active, free black family, attended her uncle’s school, and became the first female teacher at the Union Seminary. Harper’s unusually comfortable class-status and extensive education allowed her to become a skilled writer on topics that interested her, such as politics, civil rights, feminism, and religion. Harper used her skill and passion to become economically and emotionally independent. In fact, much of her work echoes her identity as a middle class woman of color who supported herself through writing. However, this nature of independence was unusual for a woman in the 1800s, especially a black woman. Though Harper’s portrayal of strong, independent womanhood is a much needed depiction of women, Harper is unqualified to establish expectations for black women in the 1800s.

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

Reading literature, at first, might seem like simple stories. However, in works like William Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily,” Katherine Mansfield's “Miss Brill,” and Kate Chopin's “The Storm,” the female protagonists are examples of how society has oppressive expectations of women simply because of their gender.

Throughout the years, different forms of literature  have generally shown women as weaker than men. They have played archetypes such as the mother archetype or the lover which have traits less desirable than the roles that men would take. These archetypes tend to limit their personalities and they become characters that are solely there for inconveniencing the hero. Stereotypes for women have affected these archetypes, but throughout history many people have made efforts to change these archetypes and make them more desirable. Even though archetypes for women have been shown as weak, it has changed throughout the years.

“Women wrote 12 of the 27 best selling novels published between 1850 and 1860. Their stories about heroines who overcame hardships no doubt helped their female readers imagine all kinds of new possibilities.” Their life’s battles they wrote about helped new generation women realize they can overcome anything and new possibilities in life. “Other women found work as launderers, domestic servants, or cooks.”They are doing everything they was told not to do and more. They are taking advantage of their time being. “Others reluctantly found change thrust upon them. Either way, women’s traditional roles and responsibilities were forever changed as many of them adjusted to life during war.” Some just bettered themselves, some

Thesis: A “true women” in the 19th Century was one who was domestic, religious, and chaste. These were virtues established by men but enforced and taught by other women. Women were also told that they were inferior to men and they should accept it and be grateful that someone just loved them.

Margaret Pease Harper was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and was the daughter of Rollin and Lena Alma Pease. She grew up around the arts, her father was an oratorio singer and performed in many historical pageants. Harper grew up in Evanston, Illinois, and earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and she also received her master’s degree from the University of Chicago. Some of her professional occupations included a piano teacher and also worked for the administration of the Colegio America in Callao, Peru. Mrs. Harper strongly believed that the geography and history of the Panhandle of Texas should be expressed through performance. She convinced Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright, Paul Green to create the Palo Duro Canyon

In the modern world women work, vote, run for office and the list goes on. In most aspects, women are equal to men. However, this was not always the case. In centuries past, women were not viewed as being equal to men socially, intellectually, or politically and were thought incapable of accomplishing anything of value. Consequently, many cultures held the view that women were possessions whose only purpose was to be subservient to men. The view of women as mere objects is evident in various works of literature throughout the ages. Two classic works of literature that exemplify this are The Thousand and One Nights and Murasaki Shikibu’s The Tale of

Reflecting upon their role in society, women in literature are often portrayed in a position

American Literature has always been about men and for men. In this essay, we are going to analyze the women’s role in the book, as inferior and weaker gender.

The impressions of women throughout history influenced the way authors depicted women in their works. The belief that women are the cause of men’s problems dates back to the bible’s first chapter. The chapter lead men to believe the ultimate fall of humanity was at the hands of a woman. Consequently, this belief has been carried from generations to generations throughout history. The legend of Morgan Le Fay changes behaviorally from evil and spiteful in Le Morte D’Arthur by Thomas Malory to kind and nourishing in “Avalon” from Vita Merlin by Geoffrey of Monmouth because of the different notions of women throughout history.

The categorisation of female characters as heroines is often less obvious than the one of male characters as heroes. In a lot of contexts, “women and men are left with the impression that women are not heroic”. In other words, sometimes people tend to regard fictional women as inferior characters to whom the traditional notion of heroism cannot be applied. Yet, with the purpose of proving such a thesis wrong, this essay will examine the historical romance The Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Hungarian novel Colours and Years written by Margit Kaffka. Indeed, the two texts will highlight the evidence that female characters can be heroic precisely because of their

Women in the 18th and 19th century were expected to follow the orders of the males in their lives. They were forced into arranged marriages to connect families in a pursuit for social power and they were expected to abide by anything the males in their lives asked of them. Free will was nonexistent. Much gothic literature effectively highlights the women’s expected role of the time. However, another aspect that seems to surface in gothic literature is whenever there is a woman who is not following the social norms, they seem to be the driving conflict behind the plotline and ultimately lead to any present happy ending.

Women have a few common tropes in literature. Seen as submissive to men, and sexualized because of it, women are presented as less-than. While this has been strayed from a little bit in modern literature with the engagement of queer writers, it is still very much the normal view of women, due to a society in which the view on women is that of being less-than. The short stories “Ask Me if I Care” and “Safari” by Jennifer Egan both perpetuate this idea of women as submissive. Egan presents female characters who only exist in the context of men, thus leaving them to be seen as inferior to the men. These tropes of women in literature, and Egan’s use of them, fit into the larger conversation: there is a degradation of women in literature due to common conceptions of women in society.