Adeline Mowbray: An Analysis

Even though Miss Skeeter’s mother always portrayed Miss Skeeter as odd and as slightly ugly, other people always seemed to gravitate to Miss Skeeter’s inner beauty like Constantine, Miss Hilly, and Steward. It is funny how society defines beauty, but individuals within a society do not fail to identify true beauty which is inner beauty. Miss Skeeter’s inner beauty definitely came from her long and close relationship with Constantine, Miss Skeeter’s childhood maid. However, Berber’s discussion began a consideration of; what would Miss Skeeter be like if any variable was different in Miss Skeeter’s life? Would Miss Skeeter be the same if her family was different, yet Constantine was the same?

This passage within "The Awakening" created by Kate Chopin is a great example of the "awakening" of the character within the story. Some important parts of this excerpt would be the allusion seen as "perhaps more wisdom than the Holy Ghost is usually pleased to vouchsafe to any woman". This allusion is stating that even god himself is not okay with the thought of a woman having such advanced wisdom. This shows how much the women were oppressed that even God is thought to think less of women as well. The diction of the piece also contributes towards the idea of her advanced wisdom.

Some people can just be impossible to argue with. Agree with them and they are fine people, otherwise, they are some of the most annoying people ever found. In Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird Aunt Alexandra is one of those people. She is the aunt of the main character, the tomboyish girl named Scout Finch. They never agree, Aunt Alexandra stubbornly bosses Scout on her tomboyish ways and confidently speaks about how she needs to be more lady-like.

Through characterization, Jean Louise’s choices parallel a key motif of the novel, the importance of forming one’s own beliefs. For instance, in Chapter 1, immediately after returning to her home, Jean Louise’s Aunt, Alexandra, criticizes her lack of conservative clothing, to which Jean Louise responds with resistance, denouncing the lack of liberal ideals in Maycomb. Through this passage, readers gain much insight into Jean Louise’s character, along

The trend was particularly popular in the early 17th and 18th century where a woman was treated with much chauvinism. With the onset of civilisation, it was expected that the trend would somehow change to favour the active role of women. Truth is that even in the 21st century, women are still regarded as inferior by their male counterparts. They are still assumed to partake a passive role in love and sexuality. However, it is unwise to generalise this concept and instead, there is a need to focus on the few isolated cases as described by Marguerite Duras’s novel The Lover.

Would someone today want to follow rules requiring them to be chaste, compliant, and dainty, like women of the Victorian Era? If followed, these instructions can cause people’s uniquity to be primarily defined in class, station, or beauty, and it can become hard to unravel the true intentions of others. Most Victorian women are proper as they are expected to be throughout their upbringing, but there always are exceptions. In Libba Bray’s fantasy novel, A Great and Terrible Beauty, Felicity is more than what she might want others to view her as. Felicity Worthington is distinctive in comparison to the typical woman of the Victorian Era as shown through her appetite for power, bold individuality, and heartless demeanour.

Bradstreet’s inner Struggle in a Nutshell: Motherhood is not a limitation, it’s an asset The poet Anne Bradstreet resorts to her stance as an industrious woman to further elaborate her poems using her two significant roles in Puritan society: wife and mother. In “The Author to Her Book” we can contemplate how the role of the mother has taken a big toll on her writing. Consequently, the poem itself is comprised of one long stanza in which the conceit correlates the poem and an ‘ugly child’, represented by the “ill-form’d offspring” (1). Why did she decide to use this juxtaposition? An idea that has come to my mind is how “poor” (25) circumstances are conveyed as a liability weighing over her head, ergo affecting her reasoning and making her believe that the only way in which she could possibly develop her poetry is through experience.

Society watered her down, and to consummate her marriage to Mr. Rochester would also consummate Jane’s transformation from her freethinking self into the ideal Victorian woman. To insult society’s idolatry of a submissive wife displays influence from radical 18th and 19th-century philosophers such as the firebrand Mary Wollstonecraft. Her sway over Brontë’s work may not be conspicuous, but Wollstonecraft wrote in A Vindication of the Rights of Women that “the duty expected from [women] is, like all the duties arbitrarily imposed on women, more from a sense of propriety, more out of respect for decorum, than reason; and thus… they are prepared for the slavery of marriage.” What society failed to recognize was that love does not necessitate marriage: as Wollstonecraft wrote, for Jane to submit to marriage would also be to submit to slavery that society

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.” Said and written in one of Alice Walker’s novels, Possessing the Secret of Joy. The novel encompasses the impact of having culturally controlled gender roles and brings awareness to how women feel powerless in their society. Her quote shows how quickly ignorance in humanity stunts the growth of empowered people. Moreover, this quote can represent the relationship between power and women, which, consequently, is discussed in the documentary, Miss Representation. Alice Walker’s wise words appear in the first shot of this film.

Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman was an iconic feminist of her turn-of-the-century time period where she advocated for women’s rights specifically as well as having controversial, even contradictory beliefs in areas of other social reform. As an author, lecturer, and social critic of the Reconstruction to Industrial movement time period where crucial societal changes were occurring for women, she was able to speak on and revolt against the stereotypical submissive role that women played in the American household of that time, with the seemingly sole purpose of motherhood and subservience to a husband. In addition, her political standpoint was visible in her fiction and nonfiction writings, the most famous being “The Yellow Wallflower”. This short story is told from a narrative, journaled perspective that is a reflection of a true account from Gilman’s

The idea of a feminist narrator sets the template for a radical and forward-thinking novel. Gilman has claimed she wrote "TYW" to "Save people from being turned crazy" by the treatment of Mitchell and his peers. But just taking that as gospel would be foolish as there is far more contextual inspiration for the novel then just this. Gilman was raised by strong and rebellious female figures including her aunt Catherine Beecher who was the founder of the Hartford Female Seminary and her aunt Isabella who was a dedicated suffragist. Due to the absence of her father, Charlotte "learned early to question the sanctity of the home, the 'domestic mythology ' and the role assigned to women '.

According to both Gloria Anzaldúa and Audre Lorde, marginal bodies become silenced and invisible by hiding difference and the “whitewashing” of history. Through their writings, both authors recognize different ways for a marginalized body to be seen by those who would try to make them invisible. From their standpoint, there are problems with identity that requires exclusions, and as feminists, they are speaking against feminists. The identity that is being discussed is being proposed from women that “don’t fit”, by those who are going against the “norms”. Therefore, identity is being both embraced and rejected at the same time by these authors.

Steinbeck created a certain image of women by portraying Curley’s wife as she is. The impression of women that was left was not too kind. “Well, I think Curley’s married… a tart… He ain’t the first… there’s plenty done that.”(Steinbeck 28). This quote speaks to me as if women are seen as unloyal. The whorehouses in this novel did not help bring up their image.

Often times in the book, Aunt Alexandra is inferred to be an inferior mother figure to Calpurnia. She talks about the kids not acting up to the standards of the family behind their backs and puts Atticus up to lecturing them about their downfalls. Aunt Alexandra also disapproves the kids’ clothing and activities, but especially Scout. She scowled when she told Scout to come inside to talk with some neighborhood ladies and she was muddy. She says that before long, Scout will start acting, dressing, and behaving more like a lady.

"I am world trapped in a person." I did not like reading until I came across a novel called The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Tartt shows the dangers of romanticising people and the past. She creates this ideology that no matter how good, everybody is bad. Tartt uses her characters to portray how literature does not shy away from the truth.