The Woman In White Was Authored In 1859 By Wilkie Collins,

In Breaking Tradition, paragraph two states, “People in “polite society” demanded that ladies live under the guidance and protection of their fathers, husbands, or other male relatives. Women could not vote or sign contracts. And under the law, husbands usually controlled their wives’ poverty, if they owned any, and wages, if they earned

At the time this novel was published, women did as they were expected to by society.

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 her 1945 article, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller illustrates a world in which “there exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves”, and where men hold “the belief that Woman was made for Man”. Two books, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, provide male and female perspective in the 19th century. These separate texts exemplify two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, Woman in the Nineteenth Century provides perspective of the feminine experience in a male dominated world while Moby Dick portrays a society from a male point of view and experiences woman as subservient to himself.

In the early 19th century, women were oppressed, and marriage was a social status, not a choice. Mrs. Mallard was a wife during 19th Century and her home was where she would spend most of her days. She also suffers from a heart condition. She learns of the tragic news on the first floor of her two story home. Her sister Josephine was the one to tell her “ in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed in half concealing.”(287) The news was revealed as delicate as possible, due to Mrs. Mallard's heart condition. Mrs. Mallard heard the news, she wept, a sense of grief comes upon her. Once she removed herself from her sister Josephine's arms, she went off to her room. It reads, “ When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. No one to follow her”(287). During this time, women were looked down upon if they were not married. Most women were given away by their

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.

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

During the nineteenth and twentieth century there was a number of changes made in America. Woman were looked at as less than back then and to a certain degree they still are today. There was a number of women that died or went insane because of the standards that they had to meet in order to be considered good women. In this research paper I will talk about the experience of the narrator of The Yellow Wallpaper and Blanche DuBois from the story A Streetcar Named Desire. It will be shown within these pages how the moral and societal standards for women were far different than they were for men, and how the standards changed over the years. Furthermore it will be shown how this effected the women of those two stories.

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.

Women roles have drastically changed since the late 18th and early 19th century. During this time, women did not have the freedom to voice their opinions and be themselves. Today women don’t even have to worry about the rules and limitations like the women had to in this era. Edna in “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin and Nora in “A Doll House” by Henrik Ibsen were analogous protagonists. The trials they faced were also very similar. Edna and Nora were both faced with the fact that they face a repressive husband whom they both find and exit strategy for. For Nora this involved abandoning her family and running away, while Edna takes the option that Nora could not do-committing suicide. These distinct texts both show how women were forced to

Women have always played key roles in literature, from the strong heroine to the damsel in distress. Common in works published before the 21st century, and even after, women are written as the caregivers, and the homemakers for their husbands. Literary women will often play the submissive role in society and in their marriages. These women react differently to their role; some remain submissive, some are rebellious, some are breaking free, and some go down as a result of their submission.

Many stories back then consisted of women being dominated over their husbands just because they are female and are considered the ones responsible to maintain the housework. The men who were considered dominant in this era, had the ability to control everything in terms of what the woman could and could not do. Along with that, it was expected that women were to be submissive to their husbands, or male figures in charge of their lives at the time. But in these three different stories, the outcomes of the woman all result in a significant impact to their lives in rather negative ways. In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, The Story of an Hour, and Desiree’s Baby both by Kate Chopin, the reader experiences the reinforced and subvert gender norms present in the women with male figures who are dominant and have control over their lives.

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.

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.

At the beginning of the Victorian Period, both single and married women’s rights were limited. The changes during this era in the identity of genders are represented in the characters the author Wilkie Collins describes. For example, Marian Halcombe is characterized as strong and predominant. She is Laura’s voice when regarding to her husband and protects her throughout the story. Although Marian knows her role as a woman in society, she disapproves with the beliefs of the era. On the other hand, Laura personalizes the conventional quiet woman that obeys customs. To emphasize this, in Collin’s novel, he lets the reader know that Laura is marrying the man that her father approved even though he is now dead. When she marries, her rights legally belong to her husband and is treated with the laws and customs of the Victorian era. Throughout this period, the distinction between classes was also notable. Comparatively, The Woman in White presents how the middle class as Laura and her uncle refer to the working class, Fanny the maid. Even though Fanny has always been their maid and is the only person they trust, they only communicate with her at their convenience. Moreover, Mr. Fairlie does not even call the maid by her name, but refers to her as “Young Person”. Certainly, the Victorian Period was a significant impact in the novel where