Amparo Ruiz De Burton's True Woman Or Free Woman?

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True Woman or Free Woman? The United States in the mid-19th century held women to a specific standard of behavior that both differs and resembles those of today. “True Womanhood” meant a middle class female was expected to be pious, pure, domestic and submissive. This meant being obedient, selfless, innocent, and motherly. Every woman who aspired to be considered “a lady” was expected to fit into these categories. María Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s novel Who Would Have Thought It?, set initially in New England around the time of the Civil War, juxtaposes three different women’s reactions to the societal expectations of being a “True Woman.” This novel begins with the protagonist, an orphan named Lola, being introduced into the Norval family by …show more content…

It is not until the Civil War that she seizes the opportunities this failure has opened up to her and redefines herself outside of conventional womanly expectations. Lavinia does not have a place within her own domestic sphere because she was courted by two men, neither of whom chose her, leaving her to reside, unmarried, in her sister’s household. Because she tries to enact some version of “True Womanhood” without a family of her own, she puts time into caring for twenty-one canaries. She takes a step toward making her own life when she kills the birds: “She saw she had to decide between her country and her birds, and her heart seemed to collapse with pain” (79). Although it’s extremely hard for her, she finds it necessary so she can commit all her energy to nursing soldiers back to health and finding her brother, who has been taken as a Confederate prisoner of war. After killing her canaries, she is free from her ties to the Norval household, so she moves to Washington D.C. where she is able to become an accomplished nurse with considerable responsibility. While she meets with members of Congress to discover what is happening with her brother, she discovers that the men will not help and are contemptuous of her, so “she now began to think of going South to hunt up Isaac herself” (163). Lavinia resolves to find her brother by any means necessary. Because of her determination, with the help of a Rebel in debt to the family, her brother is found and returned home to her. She defies the men in Congress by going around them, proving she does not obey men and will not submit to their will. In the end of the novel, this independence is reinforced by her role in helping Lola escape the wrath of Hackwell. Julian comes up with

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