The Themes Of Katherine Anne Porter

The Portrayal of the Plight of Women by the Author, In Their Particular Period of Time

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.

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.

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

The nineteenth century is popularly known for its traditional view of gender roles, especially regarding women. The term “True Woman” refers to what society at that time thought to be the ideal woman, carrying qualities of “modesty, submissiveness, physical weakness, limited education, and complete devotion to husband and home” (White, 2009, p. 1). Women were restrained in terms of sexuality, dress, language, and economic decisions. In Amy Gilman Srebnick’s The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers, Mary rebels against these standards by being a single women that is also sexually active, however, her actions are what seemingly lead to her demise. Similarly, Fanny Fern’s Ruth Hall also goes against gender norms. In her case, she earns her own economic independence through her writing and lives a more unconventional life as a mother, but faces repercussions from her family. Through the novels Ruth Hall and The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers, the main female characters revolt against being “True Women” through their daily actions and behaviors, however they’re each punished with consequences for trying to deviate from society’s path.

These literary writings address how women were influenced by a “hermeneutic” belief system that placed women mutually in unity to abide by a societal “patriarchal” power (King and Morris 23). Again, women could not communicate their feelings receptively likewise, their values and conceptions were a reflection from their husbands. Essentially, the essay

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.

In the story of The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter attacks the conventional gender roles of women. The conventional Gothic plot revolves around pursuit. A young heroine’s virtuous virginity, purity and innocence is sexually threatened. Thus, what Carter does in “The Bloody Chamber” is redefine female desire and sexuality which are rendered passive and repressed through traditional Gothic texts. Where the mother exemplifies the heroic woman, the “girl” is the traditional damsel in distress. Maria Makinen’s assessment of Carters feminine characters is both truthful and incorrect. Carter uses traditional female stereotypes as well as her unique women to make a contrast between these perceptions of women.

Hildebrand’s “The Masculine Sea” is found within the journal American Literary Realism; therefore, it can be concluded that her intended audience is: readers of American literature, realist literature, late 19th- and early 20th-century literature, and any overlaps of these. In this essay, Hildebrand uses The Awakening and other sources to argue for her thesis: Edna’s self-identifications of gender, race, and class contribute to how and why she commits suicide. There are two main themes of Hildebrand’s argument for gender identity influencing Edna’s death: Edna’s relationship with Adele, Madame Reisz, and the Colonel, and Edna’s understanding of art and the world. In exploring the gendered expectations and realities of The Awakening and of 19th-and 20th-century women, Hildebrand is engaging with a gender criticism perspective; similarly, because Hildebrand’s arguments are all about deconstructing binaries and unearthing hierarchies, there is also some poststructuralism going on. A final literary criticism that Hildebrand draws on, though more lightly than others, is postcolonialism; because Hildebrand makes connections between the racial and class expectations of masculinity that Edna possesses.

Parallel to many of the great feministic novels throughout literary history, Jane Eyre is a story about the quest for authentic love. However, Jane Eyre is unique and separate from other romantic pieces, in that it is also about a woman searching for a sense of self-worth through achieving a degree of independence. Orphaned and dismissed at an early age, Jane was born into a modest lifestyle that was characterized by a form of oppressive servitude of which she had no autonomy. She was busy spending much of her adolescent years locked in chains, both imaginary and real, as well as catering to the needs of her peers. Jane was never being able to enjoy the pleasures and joys that an ordinary and independent child values. Jane struggles

All characters in the novel are living in a man’s world; nevertheless, the author has tried to change this world by the help of her characters. She shows a myriad of opportunities and different paths of life that woman can take, and more importantly she does not show a perfect world, where women get everything they want, she shows a world where woman do make mistakes, but at the same time they are the ones that pay for these mistakes and correct them.

The novel demonstrates both popular and familiar gender roles in the 19th century. Catherine Earnshaw, breaks through the stereotypes, and has a mesh of both feminine and masculine qualities. In the Victorian Era, men are seemed as superior to women. Her gender roles are beyond the social norm, as well as her husband Edgar, who is portrayed as more feminine. Catherine holds many masculine qualities such as being adventurous, extroverted, and determined.

The theme of female struggle against male dominancy is presented throughout the novel and the narrator,

Fay Weldon, born Franklin Birkinshaw, started out life in a state of ambivalence. She “took out library books as Franklin and read them as Fay” (Weldon). “What I do have to do is be faithful to what I see around me, whether I like it or not. My role is to look at the world, get a true, not an idealized vision of it and hand it over to you in fictional form” (Fay Weldon). This is how Fay Weldon defines her writing. Although the role of women in society has vastly changed in the last fifty years, there is still a great divide amongst the sexes. It is Weldon’s fresh and sophisticated style of writing, alongside her feministic views, that make her novels spectacular.

As the typical Southern Belle, Scarlett O’Hara enjoys the privileges of a well-to-do Southern woman, living a plantation life in the slave-owning South. She is not a champion of social change outright. Her fiery personality is not necessarily a virtue; though her “unladylike” behavior becomes a kind of feminist rebellion against when coupled with circumstances that cast her from a life of privilege to experiences of bitter responsibility and loss, her initial desires as a woman certainly represent superficial interests as a society girl in a society shaped around society; when she is widowed, her concerns are less for the death of her husband than for the damper that requisite public mourning placed on her social life. Scarlett’s “strength” also derives from self-interest; though her character may be endearing, her personality is distasteful. Despite all of this, and despite the fact that Scarlett O’Hara continues to make mistakes, her strong will and ability to rise to life’s challenges endear her and make her an example of an imperfect—utterly human—strong woman.