What Are Edith Wharton's Major Accomplishments

As a writer looking towards the twentieth century Wharton faced the challenge of telling the history of women past the age of thirty. The age of thirty was established as the threshold by nineteenth-century conventions. The conventions of ‘girlhood’ and marriage ability; a psychological observation about the formation of the female identity. Wharton shared Freud’s pessimism about the difficulties of change for women. In his essay ‘femininity’,

The person we are today is a reflection of how we were raised as children. Everything we learn and experience as children shapes us for the future. In this passage of her autobiography, One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty wrote about the library and how her becoming of a writer stemmed from her love of reading. Welty is able to convey the intensity and value of these experiences while connecting to her audience.

Emily Dickinson was one of the best American poets, but she is very famous for being a secluded writer. Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1846 in Amherst, Massachusetts and she died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her isolation from the outside world still confuses literary critics and readers of her poetry and letters. There are many theories developed over time about her seclusion. Some people believe her secluded way of life was her own choice but she was very close to her family. Emily Dickinson lived in a happy home and went to a school during her life. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830 and lived there all her life most of her life. An introduction into Emily Dickinson’s poetry themes, and discussion about the isolation in her life, and discussion about the isolation in her poetry will be examined in the paper.

Jane Austen was a Georgian era author who was best known for her novels that commented on social issues and class, and Northanger Abbey is no exception. Austen’s social commentary is apparent in this novel’s plot, as the reader follows a seventeen-year-old protagonist, Catherine Morland, as she matures and forms intimate relationships with fellow characters in an England town called Bath. Marriage between characters in the novel is heavily based on wealth, and because of England’s unstable economy at the time, marrying into wealth meant maintaining a high social class and economic stability for the characters. The importance of economic prosperity and social rank heavily influenced marriage in 19th century England, and this idea bourgeoisie classism and marrying for wealth is contradicted by Austen in her novel, Northanger Abbey.

Was raised in New York City and attended Radcliffe College. After her graduation, she decided

Eudora Welty’s sheltered, adolescent life, coupled with her parent’s emphasis on education and reading, helped to shape her as the writer she was by making her stylistic approaches daring and intelligent while keeping a southern tone and state of mind.

Through all the readings that she had possessed she had become, what was the start of, an independent woman. The fact that she continued to read to further her knowledge and to learn more did not faze her that not many other women were doing as she was. At a young age she knew that “settling” with the roles of women during this time was a life that she had to choose but she also wanted more. She wanted to educate herself and that she did through the works of her favorite author’s books and poems.

Born in 1862, Edith Wharton Newbold Jones was brought up within the graceful, wealthy yet conservative, confining circle of New York society, which fostered sexual repression and prided itself on the innocence of its young girls. Edith Wharton herself was discouraged from expressing her emotions or developing her intellect which was supposed to be very unbecoming traits in a woman. This is the reason why she stressed in her fiction the need of growth, and has shown how painful and frustrating this process can be for a woman. This process of growth and development is revealed in her major works, Ethan Frome (1911), and Summer (1917) (Balakrishnan 1).

Before Anne Fadiman became a writer she was a student at Harvard University. After graduating, she became a worker as a wilderness instructor in Wyoming before returning to New York to pursue he career as a writer. She has been a staff writer at Life and editor of The American Scholar and reading. She is also the author of Ex Libris and At Large and At Small. Now she has a family and is living in western Massachusetts and serves as the Francis Writer- in- Residence at Yale.

Would let your young child read the story of Elsie Dinsmore a young heroine that is force by her father to practice on the piano for hours on end? Eudora Welty’s mother forbid her from reading those stories because she was “to impressionable”. The language convey in the autobiography shows the sentimental feelings the author has for her mother; the reason Ms. Welty enjoys reading so much is because of her mother.

Robert Armitage discusses Edith Wharton’s life in his essay, Edith Wharton, A Writing Life: Marriage, so that the reader can evaluate how Edith's personal experiences affect the characters in Ethan Frome and the novel as a whole. Armitage does not specifically give examples of parallelism between Wharton’s life and her novel, Ethan Frome because his essay only tells the story of Wharton’s life. However, he does believe that Wharton’s stories distinctly reflect “the shape of her life and the movements of her thought” (Armitage).

In a series of passages from Eudora Welty’s autobiography One Writer’s Beginnings (1983), Welty describes her early reading experiences that later influenced her writing. She conveys intensity and value in these beginnings through the use of connotative diction, narrative anecdotes, hyperbole, and compare and contrast strategies. Welty writes in a passionate tone to a general audience. She relates the impactfulness of childhood reading experiences in order to express their place in her life as a writer.

stability between her personal life as well as illustrate how it was growing up as a female during a historic time period. Wharton uses the characters in the novel to depict her growth as a writer as well as an individual. While I do not believe that Wharton completely silenced the women in the novel, I do agree that there is some silencing involved. However, I also believe that the silence can ultimately attract more people to the novel forcing them to question Wharton’s background. In my opinion, Wharton’s life had a huge impact on her character choices as well as the plot and setting of the novel.

As child Emily Dickinson was known in her town since her parents were about education and women’s rights. She was very wealthy and was usually always in the library or writing letters but did not write poems at the time. When she was sixteen she

Katherine Mansfield was born October 14, 1888 in Wellington New Zealand. Mansfield was a well-known and respected prominent writer in the 20th century. She attended Queens College in London with her sisters. Mansfield broke barriers for female writers in the early 20th century and even still today. Her stories commonly focus on the theme of reality /world versus human nature while also touching the themes of the darker and more complex sides of life.