The Reality of Edna’s Awakening Kate Chopin’s The Awakening was a dramatic novella that was based on society and how Edna was treated, love and independence of finding her true self. The author inputs the theme in a numerous amount of literary devices that include round character, irony and a metaphor to exaggerate the theme. This shows how Edna has two sides to herself; the one that tries to fit into society and another side that the public can see as a swell mother.
In conclusion, Bronte uses this novel to portray gender roles and societal rules pertaining to women to send a message to the reader in an effort to sway ideologies of this time. In this passage within the book, Bronte shows Janes struggle as women when trying to abide by expectations while internally she suffers. The silence and obedience of women are portrayed and revealed through the actions of Jane that shows that even the strong women at that time were weak when pertaining to the judgment of
Shimizu Shikin’s “Two Modern Girls” and Higuchi Ichiyo’s story “The Thirteenth Night” are literally stories that show the issues of love and how it is different from other cultural issues like honor, tradition, and satire from a feminist perspective. The stories feature the issue of loss and love in a simple but compelling way. It is unique how the two women approach the issues through character transformations in the stories. The experiences of the different characters in both stories give a critical insight into the underlying social issues affecting Japanese society. The authors show the variation over time and display the society standards at the time.
Social constructs from the eighteen-hundreds exploded into several pieces with Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. Eighteen-hundreds feminism ideas are presented and being as mid sentiments of women’s empowerment, but then become blatantly obvious later in the story when Edna starts her ‘awakening. Though it is arguable whether Edna was a selfish person who just chose to kill herself or an example of an early feminist, the book definitely did destroy some social constructs of that era. The Awakening contains great information about how gender relationships in the Victorian era was, and by the first detailing of the setting it is able to define its feminine response. One could suggest that Chopin is ahead of her time and indeed a Victorian feminist,
"The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Story of an Hour" written by Kate Chopin were written in the late 1800s. They may seem pretty different at first, but they both discuss women 's confinement in society in the late 1800s. Moreover, while these two stories focus on social status based on gender, in doing so, they bring out the effects of gender roles and gender stereotypes that end in affliction. In the story "The Yellow Wallpaper”, Gilman paints a picture for the reader starting off with the narrator a housewife who feels detached from society due to her husband’s controlling nature.
What exactly defines one as “insane” versus “sane”, and where is the boundary between the two? Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” explores exactly that: the short story initially seems to be a tale of a 19th century woman forced into the notorious rest cure popularized at the time by male doctors--however, as the plot progresses, it becomes a much deeper commentary not only on societal limitations imposed on women, but also on the blurred line separating sanity from insanity. Gilman explores the boundary between sanity and insanity with the usage of different literary elements; she expresses how the boundary is “paper-thin” through the usage of symbolism, shows the subtle conversion to insanity by utilizing a stream of consciousness
In his article, Listening to Guinevere: Female Agency and the Politics of Chivalry in Tennyson’s Idylls, Stephen Ahern examines the treatment of women in the poems, specifically the character of Guinevere in relation to her male counterpart Arthur, and provides a complex view of Tennyson’s underlying message as a critique on the Victorian social constructs of his time rather than a simple representation of it. Ahern builds a solid argument for Guinevere’s treatment as the victim in the story ultimately signifying that she was being used as a model of the wrongs of the standard Victorian expectation of femininity. This complex analysis of the text gives a different, more modern perspective of the poems. The key features of his argument cite
In her novel, The Awakening, Kate Chopin captures the interest of readers with the use of symbolism. The storyline details a time when women had strict expectations of what they should and should not do. The main character, Edna Pontellier, has a desire to change the role that society expected of her, but this view is not accepted very well. Throughout the story, Chopin uses symbolism to skillfully progress the theme of how Edna is struggling to change and be independent and happy with her life. Symbolism is specifically utilized throughout the novel with Edna’s houses, birds, the sea, and swimming.
Charles Brockden Brown’s novel, Wieland, explores the aspects of both a Gothic and sentimental novel. The novel investigates on subjects such as gender norms, religious views, and femininity. Clara, being both the narrator and protagonist, is driven by gender expectations of the eighteenth-century. She resembles the heroine of a gothic novel, but has independence due to her living on her own. Clara breaks through the eighteenth-century thinking that women were passive and ruled by their bodies and their emotions.
Slade and Mrs. Ansley. The story tells a tale of the relationships of two women who in respect to their time of society would in many ways go against their indented duties. She used the knitting to show the web of lies, betrayal, and secrets that lie within a jealous friendship. The minor clues that enable them to better understand the relations between the women, their daughters, and the Eternal City help show this correlation and shows how while the story can be full of narrative to always look within. Edith Wharton was not a typical woman, so it is safe to assume she would not produce typical work.
Barbara Leah Harman is the writer behind an analysis on Gaskell’s work that investigates the portrayal of women’s public life in Victorian England. This concept is analysed as it relates to both the historical record as well as the literary record in accordance with several works including North and South. As Harman writes in the beginning of the abstract of her thesis, “In Victorian England, female publicity seems nearly always to have been bad publicity” (Harman 1). Later on in her thesis, Harman develops this point by writing “[Gaskell] investigates both ends of the public/private spectrum: it explores the significance of female public appearance...”. One can identify that the main point that Harman is trying to prove in her essay is this: Participation in public life compromises the clarity of a woman’s position as neutral or disinterested analyst and observer, someone to whom man can turn when he seeks to be guided by “abstract principles of right and wrong.”
In Virginia Woolf's excerpt from her memoir the author uses diction to show the relationship between the family. When the author stated "Show them you can bring her in my boy. " It shows that the father has a lot of faith in his son and that he believes he can do it. It conveys the lasting significance of the moments from her past because we are able to see how her family life was and how she remembered it. Another example of diction would be when the author stated "Next time if you are going to fish I shan't come; I don't like to see fish caught but you can go if you like.
“The Death of the Moth”, written by Virginia Woolf, is a story about a Moth that undergo the way of death. This was very interesting to know and seem like something I like to know about. It could catch a lot of people attention and would like this story. The first that stood out to me was “death is a stronger than I am”.