Representation Of Women In The Novel Cranford

Women in the nineteenth century lived in a time characterized by gender inequality. At the beginning of the century, women could not vote, could not be sued, were extremely limited over personal property after marriage, and were expected to remain obedient to their husbands and fathers.( women’s suffrage movement 1) In most situations, the men would have to go to work and bring home the money, and the women would have no choice but to stay home, clean the

women have made an exceedingly great impact on the world’s economical, social, and political spectrum. However, women are still deemed inferior to men in past and present cultures. The inferiority of women has been portrayed through various avenues such as literature and written works. The Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses’ women characters are three perfect depictions of how women in today’s society are dominated, disregarded, and discredited.

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.

For the most part, society’s conception of women in the 19th century dictated the way women were treated and influenced the portrayal of female characters in writing generated during that time. The Cult of Domesticity claimed that true womanhood was marked by a natural inclination to domesticity and submissiveness. Though all women clearly have the capacity to think for themselves, earn money, and overcome the emotional obstacles they may meet, the plausibility of complete independence was a challenging appeal for Harper to make. Men dominated family

In Hannah W. Foster’s, The Coquette, Eliza Wharton is portrayed as a woman of status, above average intelligence and education, with a flirtatious nature. Though the author does not cast her in an antagonistic light, her manner is painted as foolish, flippant to 18th century social conventions, and lacking in forethought. As such, The Coquette should be viewed as a literary warning for young women of the day, especially those who may have shared undesirable attributes with Eliza. It is the novel’s intent, by way of Eliza’s thoughts and actions, to discourage young women from pursuing a fleeting and non-virtuous lifestyle. Through the novel, Foster acts as a moral guide to young women by persuading them to obey social conventions like entering into dutiful marriage, refraining from political and public

While both the “Invisible Man” and “The House of Mirth” were written near the same time frame, they were written in differing perspectives, reflecting not only social classes but also gender roles of the time period. At the time these books were written, men and women had very different roles in society. Women were in the midst of a long arduous battle of the women suffrage movement and as they gained ground in this fight the gender roles started to change along with the country: “Westward expansion also demanded that many women step outside prescribed gender roles and perform “men’s” work on the frontier” (Jolliffe 1). Men, on the other hand, had a battle of their own trying to defend their masculinity during the movement of women into new social ranks, “masculinity in the United States is certain only in its uncertainty; its stability and sense of well-being depend on a frantic drive to control its environment.” (Stryffeler 4) The struggles of this dynamic time period are expressed through the eyes of these two authors giving readers an idea of how women were viewed differently from men surrounding the gender and social issues that dominated history.

By exploring settings societies governed by political and social patriarchies, both Arthur Miller’s the Crucible and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale provide commentary on women’s role in society. Both texts are set against a backdrop in which women are seen as a ‘second class’ and are subject to male dominance. The similarities in the two texts lie within their separate discussions of gender roles in society, but they differ on the intricacies of this. From a theocratic standpoint, the play and the novel dissect the faults in an oppressive society, with Miller making it abundantly clear that it can in fact be challenged instead of conformed to. Atwood also somewhat entertains this concept, but both writers have different perceptions on identity and individuality in worlds that don’t seem much unlike our own.

Two-hundred years is a sizeable gap of time that allows plenty of room for change. American society had been rapidly changing from the early seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century, but despite this, the roles and rights of women have remained locked in place. There were many factors to consider as to why women were not allowed to flourish in their time and exceed these boundaries, and while some accepted it, there were many that opposed and faced these difficulties head on. Two female authors, one from colonial times, and one from nineteenth century America, have written about the obstacles and misogyny they’ve overcome in a male dominated literary career. Despite the two-hundred-year gap between the lives of Margaret Fuller and Anne Bradstreet, they both face issues regarding the static stereotype that women are literarily inferior and subservient handmaids to men.

The difference between men and women is a very controversial issue, while there are obviously physical differences; the problem is how the genders are treated. It is stereotypically thought that the men do the labor work and make all the money, while the women stay in the house, cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children. While this stereotype does not exist as much in the 21st century, it was very prevalent in the 1900s. By using many different literary tools such as character development, symbolism, and setting, Alice Munro’s Boys and Girls and John Steinbeck’s The Chrysanthemums challenge this controversial topic of the treatment of women versus men in the 1900s.

Over the course of many years, women have struggled to expand their roles and rights in society, hoping to one day achieve complete equality with their male counterparts. Two women, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady, both recognized the patriarchal society in which women had to endure. They despised the way it heaped inequality and servitude upon women, and decided to assert their opinion on the issue in order to change the perceptions and imposed limitations on women. In Stanton’s speech, “Declaration of Sentiments”, and in Brady’s article, “I Want a Wife”, both women attempt to convince their audiences that females deserve complete equality with men by stating the submissive situations and obligations women find themselves immersed in. This is done to get their female audiences to reevaluate how they have been treated and give them a second chance at attaining equality. Both women employ various rhetorical techniques in their arguments to strengthen, as well as compel other women to oppose the ‘domesticated’ image of women. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Judy (Syfers) Brady expressed their views in pursuance of forging a path to a revamped lifestyle for women.

The role that women play in society has changed and evolved numerous times throughout our nation’s history. Women have been viewed as both pious and ungodly, chaste and immoral, and both precious and worthless. However, what has continued to remain constant in the lives of women is the unchanging feeling of inequality and insufficiency compared to their male counterparts. Those feelings endured by women are decidedly timeless, no matter what other circumstances exist within their lives. There are indeed similarities between the lives of the women in Lepore’s biography Book of Ages and Wilson’s autobiographical novel Our Nig. Both Frado and Jane Franklin Mecom were born at a disadvantage because of the sole fact that they were female. They each

The great Elizabeth Cady Stanton once said, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women were created equal.” Thus, the significance behind this quote by Mrs. Stanton reveals that not only has the society upon planet Earth have establish a cruel history of suppressing the female gender, but it has also manufactured many stigmas and notions that are pinned to perception of how a woman must conduct herself. Nonetheless, several examples of society’s shortcomings are presented throughout O’Connor’s short story. Specifically, the story’s representation of Red Sammy’s wife and her subsequent actions allow the reader to make the strong connection that society in the 1950’s was an era in time where males obtained significant social

The story “The Crucible”, Explains some excellent similarities with the current role of women back from the 1840’s. Women were really referenced as small, Vulnerable, Sexually desired, dependent, And useless Human beings, As shown during the 1840’s. The women were viewed as Second-class Citizens. However, they did not own land, nor pursue a professional career in their lifetime. As they always were used as sexual appeal, reproduction, and Slaves. And they also couldn’t vote because of their limited rights given to them.

In a novel set in 1920’s patriarchal society dominated by the obsession of wealth, power, chasing dreams and an enigmatic narrator, just how independent can a woman really be? This is the context for the characters in ‘The Great Gatsby’ where, in the aftershock of a world war, there is celebration and the incarnation of women left at home into ‘flappers’, but it is debatable how far they have really changed from traditional housewives. For Jordan this is an exciting transition but more traditional characters such as Tom cling to the past. When a threatening situation looms over them will they run and hide or confront the problem head on, the only way they know, as in ‘No Country for Old Men’? These contrasting reactions could be a result

Throughout the evolution of the world’s societies, the roles of women seem to act as a reflection of the time period since they set the tones for the next generation. Regardless of their own actions, women generally appear to take on a lower social standing and receive an altered treatment by men. In Mark Twain’s pre-civil war novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, lies a display of how society treats and views women, as well as how they function in their roles, specifically in regards to religion and molding the minds and futures of children. The novel’s showcase of women affords them a platform and opportunity to better see their own situation and break away with a new voice.