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Feminist literature essay
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Herland, a story of a feminine utopia, exists as a staple in feminist literature to be comprehended in many ways. Author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman challenges presumptive societal standards of women and class through Herland. The story tells the tale of a mysterious and forbidden land of females who reproduce through parthenogenesis. Amid an abrupt arrival of three, conquest seeking males, the Herlanders try to understand and civilize them. All the while, through trial and error, the men come to understand Herland in different ways based on their background of class. The dichotomy of capitalism and socialism in the same culture brews acceptance, denouncement, and independence. In Marxist literary theory, more than the text itself is contextualized into a composition; instead, considerations of class. There is certainly something to be understood about the distinctions between Vandyck, Jeff, and Terry’s socioeconomic backgrounds. It is made known early in Herland that Terry resides from a wealthy upbringing: “Terry was rich enough to do as he pleased” (Gilman 1). As for Vandyck …show more content…
Thus these struggles in Gilman’s life can be directly implemented in influencing Herland. Gilman giving her daughter up to her ex-husband seems to be the most influential to me. It makes sense that Gilman would give up her daughter to a more stable household modeled by her father and step-mother instead of her own lonely, depressing civil being. It can be hypothesized that Gilman felt as though she was unfit to aid substantially in her child’s development at such a point in her life, similar to the unfitting mothers in Herland. In chapter seven of Herland, the reader gets a glimpse of the most important ideal to the Herlanders and just how significant it is to the societal
Gilman manipulates the reader s perspective throughout her story as she immediately introduces us to her world. Language plays an important role as a normal woman assesses her husband s profession and her own supposed illness. The narrator comes across intelligent if not a little paranoid-less concerned with a slighthysterical tendency but rather a queer untenanted (Gilman 691) house. Her suspicion occurs early on; appearing at first as misdirection meant to foreshadow a possible ghost story. She goes on to describe the most beautiful place with a delicious garden (Gilman 692). Her depiction is that of a quaint home-leading thereader to imagine a stable woman in a new setting. Clearly the narrator s broad vocabulary is an indication of her right-mindedness as well as her ability to examine a condition she disagrees with.
The novel is described as a feminist novel. Yet, this is not exactly acurate. The absence of men in the utopian society may seem extreme to some, and it is. This is how Gilman makes her point. She does not create a world without men because men are terrible creatures who have corrupted the world. The utopia which lacks men is a clean peaceful place, which surpasses in almost every way the competitive societies that we live in. But, it is neither the absence of men nor the presence of women that makes this to be the case. Gender, in this novel, is symbolic for the most part. Gilman does separate the two genders to destroy stereo types, but also to establish a concrete difference between the two worlds. The male world is not bad, and the female good is not good. The world in which people are defined by others and limited is bad, while the world in which people are free to grow without being defined or compared to others, and are able to see the unity of all people is good. Comparing Herland to the real world, Gilman begins destroying gender based stereotypes. Because there are no distinctions of gender in Herland, nor any superficial characteristics which accompany gender, Herland women take on the roles of all people without considering any limitations. These women are strong, agile, nurturing, intelligent, cooperative, and able to rely on themselves. They are not "typical" females. As Gilman explains through the male character Van, "Those 'feminine charms' we are so fond of are not feminine at all, but mere reflected masculinity developed to please us because they had to please us, and in no way essential to the real fulfillment of their great process" (p59). In the same way, stereotypes about men can be thrown up as well. Gilman shows the reader that if people stop basing their identities on what others want, they will no longer be slaves to limitations. They will be free to discover their true selves and will allow others to do the same. Gilman shows readers that men and women are distinct people, but reminds us that they are people first. This can be seen when one of women of Herland named Somel, questions the men by saying, "But surely there are characteristics enough which belong to People, aren't there?
Haney-Peritz states this manuscript has become a model for feminist writers looking at it through a modern day perspective. The story based on the author’s real life experience draws readers to her cause of the women’s movement (114). Gilman accomplishes the portrayal of a dominated woman by her oppressive husband giving the long-awaited voice to women everywhere.
Religion and the manipulation of history are the most important steps in creating a totalitarian state. In the novels discussed the reader comes to understand true oppression results when hope and power are removed in their totality. Katherine Burdekin’s novel, Swastika Night, portrays women who are degraded and removed, stripped of identity, femininity, and important self-efficacy as societal role-players. However, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale presents a more inclusive and historically aware society, though still defined by the separation of citizens into a strict, sexist, man-made hierarchy and ruled by religious authority. The participation allowed to women leaves opportunity for women to shape their own environment, through underground movements, and influencing the men around them. Though society and religion can affect the Handmaids, Aunts, and other levels of women as it crowds out and vilifies the memories of a longed for past, the wounds of disenfranchisement are too fresh for history to be truly erased. The distinctive and definitive difference between the two dystopian societies discussed is the active presence of women, and through women, hope.
What is Feminism? How does feminism affect the world we live in today? Was feminism always present in history, and if so why was it such a struggle for women to gain the respect they rightly deserve? Many authors are able to express their feelings and passions about this subject within their writing. When reading literary works, one can sense the different feminist stages depending on the timeframe that the writing takes place. Two such works are ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by, Charlotte Gilman and ‘Everyday Use’ by, Alice Walker; the feminist views within each story are very apparent by the era each author lives in. It is evident that a matter of fifty years can change the stance of an author’s writing; in one story the main character is a confident and strong willed young woman looking to voice her feminist views on the world, while the other story’s main character is a woman trying to hold on to her voice in a man’s world which is driving her insane.
Susan B. Anthony, a woman’s rights pioneer, once said, “Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done” (“Women’s Voices Magazine”). Women’s rights is a hot button issue in the United States today, and it has been debated for years. In the late 1800’s an individual named Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote literature to try and paint a picture in the audience’s mind that gender inferiority is both unjust and horrific. In her short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman makes the ultimate argument that women should not be seen as subordinate to men, but as equal.
In Mary Wollstonecraft’s The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria and Mary Robinson’s The Natural Daughter, women are subject to many hardships economically, simply because they are women. Women are not given sufficient opportunity, as men are, to pursue a living. Even if she is a woman of taste and morals, she may be treated as though she is a criminal and given no means to protect herself.
...present powerful characters, while females represent unimportant characters. Unaware of the influence of society’s perception of the importance of sexes, literature and culture go unchanged. Although fairytales such as Sleeping Beauty produce charming entertainment for children, their remains a didactic message that lays hidden beneath the surface; teaching future generations to be submissive to the inequalities of their gender. Feminist critic the works of former literature, highlighting sexual discriminations, and broadcasting their own versions of former works, that paints a composite image of women’s oppression (Feminist Theory and Criticism). Women of the twenty-first century serge forward investigating, and highlighting the inequalities of their race in effort to organize a better social life for women of the future (Feminist Theory and Criticism).
The study of gender and its historical analysis has, itself, evolved. Linda Kerber in her essay Seperate Spheres, Female Worlds, Woman’s Place: The Rhetoric of Women’s History argues that the metaphor of a separate women’s sphere which she traces back to the Victorian era and to de Tocqueville’s analysis of America—and which may, indeed, have been useful at one point, i...
...ble to see that it actually incorporates themes of women’s rights. Gilman mainly used the setting to support her themes. This short story was written in 1892, at that time, there was only one women's suffrage law. Now, because of many determinant feminists, speakers, teachers, and writers, the women’s rights movement has grown increasing large and is still in progress today. This quite recent movement took over more then a century to grant women the rights they deserve to allow them to be seen as equals to men. This story was a creative and moving way to really show how life may have been as a woman in the nineteenth century.
Charlotte P. Gilman and why she wrote the “The Yellow Wall-Paper”. Gilman was born in 1860 to a well-known family in Providence, Rhode Island. Her father was Fredrick Perkins, a published writer of short stories and a compiler of a reference book known as “The Best Reading” and her mother Mary Perkins. Charlotte’s childhood would be a great influence as to why she started writing. Her relationships would also play a role in the stories she wrote and how she was a women’s right activist. And the depression that she went through throughout her life. All of these influences leading up to her story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” which essentially is an autobiography with certain details changed.
Throughout the story, the reader is called to trust the narrator although it is clear she is going crazy, for she is the only telling the story. Gilman is able to develop the theme through this character’s point of view by showing that the narrator has no choice in the world in which she lives-- she must obey the men in her life above all else. If Gilman chose any other perspective, the story would not have been able to portray the woman’s oppression as well, because the reader would not have been able to see into her mind as it slipped away well into insanity.
Societal control of the accepted terms by which a woman can operate and live in lends itself to the ultimate subjugation of women, especially in regards to her self-expression and dissent. Gilman does an extraordinary job of effectively communicating and transforming this apparent truth into an eerie tale of one woman’s gradual spiral towards the depths of madness. This descent, however, is marked with the undertones of opportunity. On one hand, the narrator has lost all hope. On the other, she has found freedom in losing all hope. This subversion of the patriarchal paradigm is tactfully juxtaposed against a backdrop of the trappings of insanity.
My first reaction to Egalia’s Daughters, by Gerd Brantenberg, was something like "WHAT is this". I was immediately very confused, and had no idea what this author was writing about. In fact, I felt as though I opened the book to the middle of a story, and became turned off by the whole experience. It took about three chapters, and someone’s help, until I started to read the book understandably, with ease, and began to enjoy the world I was entering. It became very apparent that I would have to detach myself from all that I thought I knew about gender, and simply allow myself to take in the message Brantenberg was trying to convey. As soon as I began to understand what I was reading, I found myself thoroughly engaged by both the story and the sociological aspects of both the Egalian, and my societies social constructions of gender. Although I was aware, to some degree of the socialization of gender in our society, having not taken any feminist or women’s studies courses, I was not familiar with how much gender is ingrained in our culture, language, government, identities, etc. This book truly brings forth those ideals by expressing the opposite of what we know in our society to be true concerning the socialization of gender.
Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or provides social criticism in order to change this hierarchy. “The Yellow Wallpaper”, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, depicts one women’s struggle against the traditional female role into which society attempts to force her and the societal reaction to this act.