The House Of Mirth And Invisible Man

The setting of both stories reinforces the notion of women's dependence on men. The late 1800's were a turbulent time for women's roles. The turn of the century

Considered as mothers or housewives, during the 1920s and 1930s, women’s roles in society were minimal; woman had to cook, clean, and care for the children and their husbands. Women consistently had to maintain their appearance, whether they were in the home or not. Men, on the other hand, were superior and the only voice in society, while women lacked an input. Ralph Ellison’s, Invisible Man, depicts the minimal roles of women in society and their mistreatment, during the time frame of the novel. Throughout the novel, the narrator encounters various women, at certain times, and his perception of women differs from other men. While men considered women as objects, rather than equal individuals, the narrator begins to grow out of the societal

Women in the nineteenth century, for the most part, had to follow the common role presented to them by society. This role can be summed up by what historians call the “cult of domesticity”. The McGuffey Readers does a successful job at illustrating the women’s role in society. Women that took part in the overland trail as described in “Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey” had to try to follow these roles while facing many challenges that made it very difficult to do so.

Masculinity didn’t do a good job of attaining the hoped-for standards, as they didn’t have other equally profound consequences for American middle-class culture at this time. It justified the exclusion of women from the world as acceptable to both women and men at this time, and it cultivated strong bonds around women as well. They in fact shared the biological experiences central to their definition as women and spoke the same language of virtue and piety, which essentially means that they instilled a awareness of a set of common goals for them and experiences present for them, which had values specific to women, and distinct from those of men. The key to this was the extensive networks of female friends that were present during this time period for these women. Since women were supposedly better than men during this time, it was feasible and easy to believe that women were obliged and privileged to work together and help other women, who were fallen, and poor, who were having some sort of trouble during this time period as a result of the society that they were present in during this time period. Southern white women during this time were aware of the ideology of domesticity during this time, and they would try to implement it and its teachings for their lives, but their expectations were frequently articulated during this time period. There was little industrialization, domestication, urbanization, immigration, and therefore, social dislocation present during

In many different time periods throughout America’s history, there has been an overwhelming “norm” in society that depicts the male as the most dominate member of the household. Although this is not necessarily seen in today’s society, it is not rare to find this theme present in a large number of works studied in American Literature. Two authors that illustrate this pervasive theme in their short stories are Charlotte Perkins Gilman and William Faulkner. Despite the fact that these short stories were written almost fifty years apart, the protagonists in both Gilman’s “ The Yellow Wall-paper” and Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” live in a society where they are severely conflicted because of their confinement to a patriarchal family dynamic.

The oppression of women has occurred all throughout history across the world in the thousands of years that patriarchy has existed. During recent times as social standards have progressed, the voices of women are heard more often than long ago. Nonetheless, it is often overlooked that women of decades before used their voices in other ways in order to speak out against oppression. One of the ways these women did this was in their literary writing. Despite the progress made today to stand up against oppression of women, there is much that can be learned by looking back at problematic situations portrayed by women writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Out of all of the texts written by women only three will be discussed; Rebecca Harding Davis’s Life in the Iron-Mills, Susan Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers and Flannery O’Connor’s Good Country People, in which specific symbols are used as representations of the ways in which women were oppressed and how important it is to study these texts today. By narrowing down the number of literary texts to three as well as discussing only one literary device from each, one can begin to understand the importance of learning about the American women’s literary tradition.

When reading House of Mirth, Lily Bart seems to be a victim of circumstance, and readers watch her life seem to crumble around her. From the beginning, Lily was depicted as an overwhelmingly gorgeous woman; however, she has an overwhelmingly massive downfall: her dependence on wealth and social status. As outsiders, readers understand that money comes and goes, and social status is far from the most important things in life; however, Lily would disagree. Being born into high-society, Lily quickly developed a fondness for the extravagant things in life while fearing, and almost hating, dinginess (Wharton, 30-35). However, as the story progresses, she loses all the little money she has to fuel her gambling addiction, as if metaphorically

From the beginning of time, sexism has greatly impacted and hindered women from all walks of life. This was particularly true in America’s history. In the 1930’s, females were treated as though they were strictly sex objects. In John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, this case is evident when Curley's wife is objectified and disrespected on multiple occasions. Although Curley’s wife is considered an antagonist of the story, she is actually a victim of sexism based on how the men on the ranch act toward her and take away her basic freedoms.

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.

Gender roles are a set of societal norms that dictate the different types of behavior which are generally considered acceptable for people based on their actual or perceived sex or sexuality. In the graphic novel “Fun Home: Old Man, Old Artificer” by Alison Bechdel and the story “Shiloh’ by Bobbie Ann Mason the main characters switch gender roles. These stories use irony to convey the gender roles men and women are supposed to have; however Old Man, Old Artificer reveals what happens when you try to cover up your secret by switching gender roles while “Shiloh” reveals that changing gender roles can cause a marriage to end.

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.

At first glance, Harriet B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin can be viewed as a monumental, progressive, and successful abolitionist novel, but upon further examination, we as an audience can see that although the novel was progressive for it’s time, it ultimately fails to live up to it’s reputation as a novel that preaches equality for all. Through the novel’s main character Tom, this notion of failure can unmistakably be seen. Stowe’s representation of Tom as a more feminine character rather than masculine not only undermines her end goal of gaining equality among all races, but it also does an injustice to the “black man” by reinforcing the stereotype that the African-American race is inferior to the white race. In “”Masculinity” In Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Wolff presents with compelling evidence as to how Stowe portrays Tom as a feminine character. Wolff defined what the stereotypical be feminine and masculine identities were doing the publication of the novel. Wolff ultimately gives Stowe too much credit; stating that she did this in an attempt to transform the masculine identity. I agree with Wolff’s initial prognoses that Tom is a more feminine character, but not with her interpretation of why Stowe portrayed Tom in this manner. Nevertheless, her definitions of masculine and feminine identity during the mid 19th century are crucial when looking at Tom as a feminine character. Although Stowe’s intentions were wholesome, she diluted the novels overall

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe is “one of the most famous books in the world” she is considered to be the woman that started the civil war. This book presents Anti-slavery ideas using Religion, Maternity and the idea of Gender Roles to promote the idea of Anti-Slavery. Throughout Uncle Tom’s Cabin there are “slave problems”,how slavery destroys and crumble families by splitting apart mother and child along with husband and wive.Stowe argues that these slavery brings out the femininity in a man, but it could be thought of the other way? In society Men and Women are given different characteristics that define the way they are suppose to act and how they appear internally and physically. Women are meant to have a feminine persona

Edith Wharton’s novel, House of Mirth, written in 1905 centers around Lily Bart, a single woman in her late twenties, who is constantly struggling to maintain her status in high society. Lily navigates herself through the upper class with a “double consciousness”. This double consciousness enables her to recognize “...that [she] is at the same time inside and outside the ideology of gender; and conscious of being so, conscious of that twofold pull, of that division, that doubled vision” (Carson 695). Throughout the text she is constantly trying to balance a life of being a financially independent woman or the “New Woman” Wharton and her contemporaries added to the female archetypes, but then having to abide in the gender roles that society had established. The limits of her sex contribute to her inevitable failure by the end of the novel but the knowledge of them aided her deconstructing her role as a woman. This “double consciousness” is an advantage since she is able to manipulate the upper class, but the facade she tries to maintain in order to achieve her goal-- financial stability--contributes to her falling victim to the society she tried to configure to her own desires. In this paper, I will argue how the double consciousness of Lily Bart deconstructed the tradition woman to assert the “New Woman”.

Within most narratives involving women, they start with the pursuit of marriage and end with a happily married woman. Within her novels, Edith Wharton works to demonstrate the flaws of this understanding and present a question on the possibility of female happiness. By specifically looking at The House of Mirth, Summer, and The Custom of the Country, exposing Wharton’s stark critique of the nature of women’s involvement within a patriarchal social structure allows us to understand the damaging effects of female gender expectations. Marriage and motherhood become the expected paths for women and consequently, they are punished when they go outside of these expectations. By then placing the possibility for happiness at the center, marriage becomes