The Awakening's Treatment Of Women In The Victorian Era

The birds are the major symbolic images from the very beginning of the novel: "A green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage outside the door, kept repeating over and over: `Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi! That's all right!'" (Chopin pp3) In The Awakening, caged birds represent Edna's entrapment. She is caged as a wife and mother; she is never expected to actually be able to think and make decisions for herself. The caged birds also symbolize the entrapment of Victorian women in general since their movements are limited by the rules of the society that they live in. Just

The Victorian Era women was vastly different than the female we think of nowadays. Women during that time were expected to fulfill more of a domestic and motherly role, one that stayed at home and took care of the house. They were confined within the private sphere of the world while the men toiled away in the public sphere. The ideal Victorian women was described as:

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.

Music can be a powerful emotional tool. The sweet, sober sounds of Adele’s “Someone Like You” can bring chills or even tears to listeners. In the 18th century, the emotional allure of music was no different: The quiet, reverberating notes in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 can still evoke loneliness and despair. There are few things more satisfying than yell-singing along to Nirvana when you’re angry, or skipping around the house to a Taylor Swift song after a particularly good day.

Gender expectations in society were not only limited to marriage guidelines, but went as far as to outline what a woman should wear and say. The proper Victorian woman was supposed to always be suitably dressed. This means that she should wear a dress that covered everything down to her ankles. It was even scandalous if a woman were to show her feet in public. A proper woman should also always be conservative with her speech and hide her sexuality. If a woman were to speak about or show her sexuality, she would automatically be seen as ‘loose’ and be looked down upon. Swartz-Levine describes how ‘loose women’ were seen when she explains: “…an Imprudent woman is looked on as a kind of Monster; a thing diverted and distorted from its proper

Kate Chopin was a writer from 1890 up to the time of her death in 1904. She became a writer after he husband’s death in 1882. She wrote The Awakening in the Victorian Era, in 1898. During the Victorian Era time period there were a lot of social and culture issues happening along with historical issues. Social and cultural issues which included gender issues and class issues. Historical events such as wars and other authors also could have influenced Kate Chopin’s writing.

The most common way to characterize a society at a given time is to divide it into social classes and evaluate the differences between each group. However, the period known as the Victorian era in England, from 1837 to 1901, witnessed such polarized gender roles that it can also be analyzed according to the different functions assigned to men and women, more commonly known as the ideology of separate spheres. The separate spheres framework holds that “men possessed the capacity for reason, action, aggression, independence, and self-interest [thus belonging to the public sphere]. Women inhabited a separate, private sphere, one suitable for the so called inherent qualities of femininity: emotion, passivity, submission, dependence, and selflessness, all derived, it was claimed insistently, form women’s sexual and reproductive organization”. Following such principles allowed men, allegedly controlled by their mind or intellectual strength, to dominate society, to be the governing sex, given that they were viewed as rational, brave, and independent. Women, on the other hand, were dominated by their sexuality, and were expected to fall silently into the social mold crafted by men, since they were regarded as irrational, sensitive, and dutiful. As Susan Kent observes: “Women were so exclusively identified by their sexual functions that nineteenth-century society came to regard them as ‘the Sex’”1. This essay will examine the Victorian social institutions of marriage, motherhood,

During the victorian era Queen Victoria a woman's place was at home was a motherhood were considered by society to be large and emotional for females.

Women were only there for men, and the most important aspect of that was marriage. From the time they were young they were set to be beautiful, because only the pretty girls got the richest man. The girls were groomed and basically put on show like a common day racehorse. In addition to being good-looking, a young girl was expected to be able to sing, play an instrument and speak French and Italian. They needed to be gentle, innocent and ignorant of their intellectual opinions. Women in the Victorian society were meant to be weak, helpless, fragile and unable to think for themselves. There only job was to make sure the home was comfortable for the children and the man of the house. Her one use to the world was to produce a large family and a neutral and calm family atmosphere. In those times the man was the moneymaker and the woman was there to keep the house clean and tranquil.

In the Victorian era, the status of women in society was extremely oppressive and, by modern standards, atrocious. Women had few rights, in or outside of the home. Married women in this period relied on men almost completely as they had few rights or independence. With this mindset in focus,

Despite being under the rule of a female monarch, women faced many inequalities and suffering during the Victorian age. Examples of these inequalities include not having the right to vote, unequal educational and employment opportunities. Women were even denied the legal right to divorce in most cases. As the Norton Anthology states, these debates over women’s rights and their roles came to be known as the “woman question” by the Victorians. This lead to many conflicting struggles, such as the desire by all for women to be educated, yet they are denied the same opportunities afforded to men. While these women faced these difficulties, there was also the notion that women should be domestic and feminine. There was an ideal that women should be submissive and pure because they are naturally different. The industrial revolution introduced women into the labor workforce, but there was still a conflict between the two identities; one of an employed woman, and one of a domestic housewife.

The piano is in fact an extension of herself and this connection is emphasised by the fact that the longest gaze in the film is given not to a man looking on a woman but to a woman gazing on a supposedly inanimate object. This gaze emphasises the isolation that she herself feels at this moment.

The ladies needed to set themselves up for what was to happen to their lives and it decided their future. If a lady did not meet the desires of the Victorian male, she would end up spouseless.They expected the men to take care of them and provide for them since they were unable to provide for themselves.

Not to mention, that they somehow took us through a journey during the Victorian Age and illustrated how equal rights for gender developed throughout time on what they are today. Nevertheless, the authors expected equality in gender specifically for women who did not share the same opportunities as men. Society viewed women as low power and were basically a man’s slave. A woman’s life was dedicated to their home and attend as well as please her husband and their children daily, at all times with no type of education and no type of freedom whatsoever. Furthermore, that even the court systems agreed with society and made up several laws to adjust to the community norms. Basically, supporting men in their actions and the belief of women being low power. Both, viewed women as the legal slaves of their husbands yet, during “A Vindication of The Rights of Women” women had no tolerance to overcome their husbands but, during The “Woman Question and the Victorian Literature On Gender” women managed to start the liberation of several norms and accomplished things that during the beginning of the era did not

In today’s era both males and females being seen as equals is a widely accepted belief; however, in the Victorian era this thought would be laugh at. In fact, men were viewed far more superior to women. Where as, the men were put on a pedestal the women seemed to have little to no use. Although, women only had a few tasks to accomplish in life, what she was tasked with was highly expected of her. These were things such as do not be a burden, act as expected, marry well, and have a son.