Willa Cather's O Pioneers! and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Mr. Peebles' Heart In both Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers! and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story "Mr. Peebles’ Heart" present the reader with strong, successful female characters. Alexandra Bergson, the heroine of O Pioneers!, becomes the manager and proprietor of a prosperous farm on the Nebraska frontier while Joan R. Bascom of "Mr. Peebles’ Heart" is a successful doctor. Cather and Gilman create competent, independent female characters that do not conform to the perceived societal standards for women in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. Both women must struggle against society’s perception of what they should be and how they should behave, however, Alexandra’s struggle leaves her emotionally distant while Joan’s struggle does not hinder her emotional attachments. Throughout the nineteenth century, gender roles were increasingly characterized by a division of activity into separate spheres for men and women. Men moved freely between home and the outside world, however, women were largely restricted to the home and remained financially dependent upon a man. While this situation offered women more power within the home, that power was very limited in scope. As the twentieth century neared, more and more women began to challenge the societal expectations placed upon them. Many Americans began to fear that the family was disintegrating due to "a declining birth rate, a rising divorce rate, and efforts of a growing number of women to break out of their separate sphere of domesticity by obtaining a higher education, joining women’s organizations, and taking jobs outside the home" (Kellogg and Mintz 1937). As this progressive movement gained momentu... ... middle of paper ... ...ifestyle as the manager of a profitable farm. But while Joan has thrived in her professional and her social life, Alexandra is emotionally stunted as a result of her struggle against societal norms. Works Cited Cather, Willa. O Pioneers! New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1993. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "Mr. Peebles’ Heart." "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Other Stories. Ed. Paul Negri. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1997. 63-70. Kellogg, Susan and Steven Mintz. "Family Structures." Encyclopedia of American Social History. Ed. by Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn and Peter W. Williams). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993. 1925-1945. Pleck, Elizabeth H. "Gender Roles and Relation." Encyclopedia of American Social History. Ed. by Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn and Peter W. Williams). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1993. 1945-1961.
May begins by exploring the origins of this "domestic containment" in the 30's and 40's. During the Depression, she argues, two different views of the family competed -- one with two breadwinners who shared tasks and the other with spouses whose roles were sharply differentiated. Yet, despite the many single women glamorized in popular culture of the 1930's, families ultimately came to choose the latter option. Why? For one, according to May, for all its affirmation of the emancipation of women, Hollywood fell short of pointing the way toward a restructured family that would incorporate independent women. (May p.42) Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, for example, are both forced to choose between independence and a happy domestic life - the two cannot be squared. For another, New Deal programs aimed to raise the male employment level, which often meant doing nothing for female employment. And, finally, as historian Ruth Milkman has also noted, the g...
Lasch-Quinn, Elisabeth. "Family." Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton and Peter W. Williams. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001. Student Resources in Context. Web. 6 Mar. 2014.
For over centuries, society had established the societal standard of the women. This societal standard pictured the ideal American woman running the household and taking care of the children while her husband provided for the family. However, between 1770 and 1860, this societal standard began to tear at the seams. Throughout this time period, women began to search for a new ideal of American womanhood by questioning and breaking the barriers society had placed upon them.
In the novel O Pioneers! the author Willa Cather?s vision of Alexandra Bergson is consistent in character treatment with other authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne (Scarlet Letter), and Stephan Crane (Maggie: A Girl of the Streets). In each novel, all authors possess a central character that has an obvious tension between themselves and their community. Unlike the previous authors, Cather?s sympathies lie toward Alexandra. She makes Alexandra seem artificial because she has given a woman (also being her main character) strength and courage, along with power to overcome those who wish to pull her down.
In the short stories A Rose for Emily and The Story of an Hour, Emily Grierson and Louise Mallard are both similar women, in similar time periods but they both are in entirely different situations. This essay will take these two specific characters and compare and contrast them in multiple, detailed ways.
The function of women in politics, the economy, and communal events in American society moved significantly from the pre-Revolutionary war era to the early beginnings of the 20th century. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, women were looked upon as being “subordinate to males” and so as a result women were affected by the laws and regulations forced upon them by men. It was almost as if it was a woman’s right, to get married, have kids, and live out the obligation of being a thorough wife and mother. Because the government was mainly ruled and controlled by men, it was often that women didn’t have the lawful rights, for example the power to vote or be in possession of property.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." 1892. The New England Magazine. Reprinted in "Lives & Moments - An Introduction to Short Fiction" by Hans Ostrom. Hold,
Many middle class and elite women followed the same thinking pattern of most men in the nineteenth century that women should focus on preserving their morality, improving society, and being domestic subservient wives (lecture). This ideal of true womanhood directly conflicted with working class women’s definition of womanhood and the changing work patterns in the United States. Because middle class and elite woman did not view working women as “true women,” these women often ostracized working class women, which caused tension and increased class divisions (lecture). Additionally, this class rift between women most likely contributed to the slow progress of the women’s rights movement that began in the later half of the nineteenth century. As men were reluctant to accept the shifting definitions of womanhood, many middle class and elite women were also hesitant to accept these changes and began to relate to lower class women in a more hostile
The workplace became masculinized, and the home feminized. By the separation of the masculine and feminine spheres that had been promoted, men and women now lived in separate worlds. By the turn of the twentieth century, men realized that their exclusion from the domestic sphere was, in fact, harmful to them: It left men “unable to experience the love, nurture and repose that the home supposedly represented” (Kimmel 158). Men were also worried at the “feminization” that potentially threatened their sons: men feared that women, who had the main responsibility for the upbringing of the children, would make the sons into
In the latter years of the nineteenth century, women's roles in American society underwent gradual but definite growth, spurred on by a rapidly changing society. As the nation recovered from its Civil War and slavery faded away, a massive transformation of industrialization took place, and revolutionary scientific ideas, such as those presented in Charles Darwin's Origin of Species, and by Sigmund Freud, caused people to question and to rethink fundamental aspects of their lives, religion, and beliefs. Social reforms in the fields of health, labor, and education developed as the publication of books and periodicals revealed to the public the problems therein. At the turn of the century, women's roles were severely limited by society's concepts of male supremacy and female inferiority. Women were perceived as weak, a notion upheld by the "prevalence of invalidism among nineteenth century women". (Muhlenfeld, Elisabeth) Fashions of the times didn't help either. Voluminous, billowing skirts hampered movement, and corsets caused dizzy spells and fainting. A woman's priority in young adulthood was to find a husband, and after doing so, raise a family and run a well-kept household. Women were not expected to harbor aspirations other than "... the acquisition of a husband, a family, and a home....". (Cowen, Ruth Schwartz) The male-d...
Welter, Barbara. “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860.” The American Family in Social Historical Perspective. Ed. Michael Gordon. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1978. 373-392.
In the nineteen twenties, the crusade for women’s rights gained a much greater force than it had in the past. What helped to make this possible was the economic upturn. The wages of workers increased, and women also began to weigh more heavily in the workforce. Beginning in World War One, American women began to take the jobs of their spouses to support their families. They continued to work even after the war was over. The amount of women making up the overall labor forced increased about two percent in the time between 1920 and 1930, totaling to about twenty two percent in 1930 (“Women in the Labor Force”). Although they did not take the same jobs that men did, women were still an important ...
Kuttner also agrees, “a lot of ugly realities were concealed by “traditional values”; the legal and economic emancipation of women was long overdue, and the task now is to reconcile gender equality with the healthy raising of the next generation.” (124). Before the 1890s, females had no other options but to live with their parents before marriage and with their husband after marriage. They couldn’t work and if they did, their wages were way lower than men.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott has greatly enriched my understanding, as a reader, about poverty, salvation, religion and most importantly, the transformation of young girls into strong women. The book is impressively written, displaying a combination of symbolism, characters that are hard not to adore and hints of important American history. This novel is crafted with a loving tone. At the end of the novel, the little women had grown and I, as a reader was compelled to read on about their lives as they continued.
Then there was the woman’s movement and women felt they deserved equal rights and should be considered man’s equal and not inferior. The man going out to work, and the wife staying home to care for the home and the children would soon become less the norm. This movement would go on to shape the changes within the nuclear family. Women deci...