Barbara Leah Harman

In Virginia Woolf’s essays, entitled “The Professions for Women” and “Virginia Woolf”, she describes women’s domestic lives in the early 20th century. Woolf’s writing also sets the scene for a period when women’s place existed in the private sphere, while men’s place was the public. The aim of this paper is to explore the domestic lives of women through the lens of marriage, social class and domesticity by reviewing the writings of Virginia Woolf, Alice Wood’s essay, “Made for Measure”, Susan Glaspell’s play, “Trifles”, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s poem, “I Sit and Sew”. The common themes described in the writing of all four authors are the subordination and oppression of women in a society controlled

The end of the eighteenth - beginning of the nineteenth century England was characterized by the downfall of the revolutionary “Jacobin” movement which advocated for freedom and equality, and symbolizes a return to, as well as an empowerment of the conservative British patriarchal system. This was the context in which Amelia Anderson Opie wrote “her most political novel”(King and Pierce, viii) Adeline Mowbray, a tale which provides a case study about, as Roxane Eberle notes, “progressive ideas that heterosexual relationships can and should exist outside of marriage”(1994: 127). As a result the clash between these innovational type of relationships and the English legal and social norms collide in their representation of models of proper conduct

In the award winning article, “Passages in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein: Towards a Feminist Figure of Humanity?” Cynthia Pon addresses masculinity and feminism in terms of conventions, ideals, and practices (Pon, 33). She focused on whether Mary Shelly's work as a writer opened the way to a feminist figure of humanity like Donna Haraway argued. The article has a pre-notion that the audience has read Frankenstein and Haraway's article. Pon has a slight bias, due to her passion as a feminist writer. It may skew her thinking and at times be subjective. The intended audience is someone who is studying literature and interested in how women are portrayed in novels in the 19th century. The organization of the article allows anyone to be capable of reading it.

How are those of the female gender supposed to act? In the 1930’s women were frill members of society and their only purpose was reproducing and doing domestic or menial jobs. However, in modern times, women are independent and have significant roles in society. Although society’s view of this subject has changed drastically for the better, some matters don’t change.

The essay I chose to compare Dracula with was “Kiss Me With Those Red Lips: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Christopher Craft. The essay explains the sexuality in Dracula, desire, gender, and even homosexuality. Craft mentions his essay gives an account of Stoker’s “vampire metaphor” (Craft 108). He highlights certain and very valid points in the story of Dracula that breaks the Victorian gender role, writing, “a pivotal anxiety of late Victorian culture.” (Craft 108). Craft examines the usual roles of the Victorian men and women, passive women especially, requiring them to “suffer and be still”. The men of this time were higher up on the important ladder of that era. Craft believes the men are the “doers” or active ones in

Pride and prejudice and the scarlet letter implement misogyny and use their own century’s gender roles to criticize the inequality in women. Both the novels see the women as inferior; as on Pride and Prejudice females are seen as a status tool that marries into a higher class and obtains a higher status. The Scarlet letter shuns women by holding a female accountable for her sins, humiliating and punishing them by forcing to wear a red scarlet letter a that lowers their status,gives them a bad look, and negatively affects the first impressions of anyone they meet. There are contrasting and similar differences in their constructive criticism towards women

Examine how either text represents either class or gender. Are these representations problematic or contradictory? How do they relate to the plot and structure of the novel?

The texts ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ (1845) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ (1926). Both explore the universal values of idealised love, limitation of time and hope of restoration. As such inherently reflected through their relevant contexts of the Victorian Era and 1920’s Jazz age value systems. Even though the text share similar themes their interpretation completely differ influenced by diverse historical context, personal experiences and human values.

In Charlotte Perkins’ “The Yellow Wallpaper” we are shown the oppression of one's individuality, particularly women’s during the Victorian period, where men and women became more sharply defined than in any other time in history. In earlier centuries it was common for women to work in conjunction with husbands and brothers in family businesses, but this had changed with the assistance of momentous events such as the Second Great Awakening that swept the nation and gave a rise to more active and optimistic religious sensibility, and the Market Revolution which led to the commercialization of economic life and the decline of household production and work diminishing the economic role of women. This concluded with the complete isolation of women in society. “The Yellow Wallpaper” represents this

In the Victorian era, gender inequality was daily life. Men were most often the dominant power in a relationship whereas women were expected to be pure and innocent. In an era of arranged marriages, women belonged to their husbands and were attached to their households. However, Wilde has questioned these gender roles and created rather independent and powerful female characters in the play. Though Lady Bracknell and Jack have to give their consent as an approval of marriage to their wards, Gwendolen and Cecily, women show dominance over men in each relationship. Men in the other hand don’t play an active role in the setting of

As often seen in the 1800s, the role in which women played amongst society was often minuscule, and unheard of compared to their male counterparts. This is exactly the case in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” In a time

Jane Austen’s social mirror reflects her very broken, unfair, Victorian society in an accurate and entertaining way. Her literary catalog is filled with commentary and wit regarding gender inequality, and she did not hesitate to inject her works with her own personal beliefs and thoughts. Austen was a brave individual for putting such hefty arguments into her works, and was a unique author in the ways she could encapsulate her society in such a realistic manner. Austen was among the first to make art that required an active and socially conscious mind, and she thrived on the concept of having to truly read between the lines to understand her message, a trait not often well

Jane Austen lived in a period at the turn from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth century, which was a period of mixed thoughts, which conflicted all the times. Among all the conflicts, the most important one was the disparity in social status between men and women. Not only men’s status was in the center of the society but also common people thought it was right that men were much more important than women were. In those days girls were neither allowed nor expected to study much because they did not have to work for a living. They were supposed to stay at home and look beautiful in order to get suitable husbands. Jane Austen, especially in Pride and Prejudice has manage to convey that a woman can be intelligent and her intelligence can be very impressive. Elizabeth Bennet is good- looking but Darcy is more influenced by her witty answers and intelligence rather than her beauty. The present paper discuss that how Austen, through her character of Elizabeth Bennet, showed that intelligent woman can succeed in society.

In this the year, which marks, the centenary in which, women won the right to vote; this essay will be to ‘Discuss the presentation of the women in ‘The great Gatsby’. One cannot understand the writing of ‘The great Gatsby’ without considering the era in which it took place. The role of women first started to change after the First World War in United States of America. Before this war, women did not enjoy universal suffrage. However, that was to change. In the decade of the 1920s, there was enormous social and economic change. In this change, great numbers of women went to work and earned their own income. With income comes taxation and in United States of America as James Otis U.S. politician once said, “Taxation without representation is tyranny” (Ratcliffe, 2014). Therefore, what followed was the right of women to vote; with this, the voice of women where now represented in public office changing forever the political life of the nation. This new independence marked a big step to social equality.

The society in the Victorian Era was amidst a great change. Having in mind the fact that they were moving from a pastoral life to industrialization, their lifestyle changed. As with every transition, there is the issue of adapting to changes because people tend to hold onto their principles. The society of that time had ideas and expectations on how women should behave. They were expected to be humble, pure, innocent, good wives and mothers. Furthermore, they were seen as inferior to men in almost every aspect.