Restuccia, Frances L. “’Untying the Mother Tongue: Female Difference in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 4.2 (1985): 253-264. Print. Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One’s Own. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
George Eliot’s most prominent female character, Dorothea Brooke, seeks to find fulfillment, professionally and socially, yet never fully achieves this goal. George Eliot is shining a light on the roles women played in relationships by showing a variety of relationships, both failing and thriving. George Eliot, just as Virginia Woolf also explained, had to battle for publishing rights by writing under a pen name and struggling to receive compensation to continue to write. Feminist critics point out that female writers achieved success due to their ability to conform to a world of patriarchal literature. George Eliot did so by conforming to society through the use of her pen name, Marian Evans.
Ward, Jennifer A. "Deconstruction or Feminist Critique?" December 9, 2001. http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis.6998/chopin2.html. Wear, Delese and Nixon, Lois LaCivita. Literary Anatomies: Women's Bodies and Health in Literature.
Her time period consisted of other female authors that focused on the same central theme during the era: exposing the unfairness of the patriarchal society, and women’s search for selfhood, and their search for identity. In Chopin’s novel The Awakening, she incorporates the themes mentioned above to illustrate the veracity of life as she understood it. A literary work approached by the feminist critique seeks to raise awareness of the importance and higher qualities of women. Women in literature may uncover their strengths or find their independence, raising their own self recognition. Several critics deem Chopin as one of the leading feminists of her age because she was willing to publish stories that dealt with women becoming self-governing, who stood up for themselves and novels that explored the difficulties that they faced during the time.
A feminist analysis of Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart. Retrieved from http://voices.yahoo.com/a-femanist-analysis-chinua-achebes-novel-things-3187491.html?cat=38 Mezu, R. U. (2013). Women in Achebe’s world. Retrieved from http://www.nigeriaviallagesquare.com/forum/books-creative-writing/4420-women-achebes-world.html Strong-Leek, L., (2001).
Jane Elton's Identity Conflict in Catherine Maria Sedgwick’s A New England Tale In her article “‘But is it any good?’: Evaluating Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Fiction,” Susan Harris provides methods and criteria for examining Women’s Fiction in what she calls “process analysis” (45). To apply Harris’ guidelines to Catherine Maria Sedgwick’s A New England Tale, I must first “acknowledge the ideological basis of [my] endeavor” (45) as a feminist/equalitist critique of the text. Furthermore, I identify the three-fold approach that Harris describes as historical, in distinguishing early nineteenth-century from mid- to late-century attitudes, rhetorical, in labeling Sedgwick’s communication to readers didactic, and ideological, by understanding my objections stem from twenty-first-century attitudes. Harris also explains, “If we look at them as both reactive and creative…we can understand [texts’] aesthetic, moral, and political values” (45); I consider A New England Tale to have a sentimental aesthetic, a Christian morality, and a support of female subordination. The concern of this paper is the “happy ending,” typical in Women’s Fiction according to Harris (46), present in A New England Tale, in which Jane Elton sacrifices her autonomous self through marrying Mr. Lloyd.
I begin with the analysis of the differences; these are the setting’s comparison as well as the social context’s one. I have chosen these two aspects since I consider that the social context was a key factor for the development of the feminist movement as well as the histor... ... middle of paper ... ...r. Some critics, and notably, Elaine Showalter points out that Ophelia has become the symbol of the distraught and hysterical woman in modern culture. Atwood's Lady Oracle is a feminist novel even only for the fact that its central theme is about the formation of gender identity. Joan writes and is written about; if Atwood writes about Joan's childhood experiences, about her interaction with male partners and other woman, then Joan writes about the precariousness of feminine subjectivity in a male-dominated world thanks to her character, Charlotte. All in all, I would like to conclude in saying that both literary works can be analyzed, interpreted and argued about from many perspectives; Hamlet, because of the play's dramatic structure and depth of characterization, and Lady Oralce, because of the complexity of the main character and the novel's form novelty.
It can be inferred that the author’s main goal is for this literary work to serve as a message to the people along with changing the society in relation to these problems. The author mentions several issues of the society including how women are treated. Pertaining to women’s role in the society, the Middle Ages was also considered a patriarchal society which is why in the tales, the author depicts the inequality that is resulting from this. Despite what many would think based on his writing, Chaucer is not a misogynist. Chaucer only shows the perception of women in his society with an indication of his feminist views as well.
Subsequent to her examination of Susanna Rowson’s Charlotte Temple, Jill E. Anderson infers that the novel resembles a woman’s captivity narrative. In fact, she compares Rowson’s novel to the spiritual autobiography of Mary Rowlandson, stating that both authors “recognize the challenges faced by women in their respective periods and engage in the doubled discourse of confirming the patriarchy and fighting within or against it” (Anderson 431). The correlation between genres suggests that Charlotte Temple coincides with an advocacy for women’s rights This is not an innovative revelation. Since the American edition was published in 1794, the majority of scholars have categorized Charlotte Temple as an advocate for sexual equality. Indeed, during the eighteenth century, the voices of American women were largely drowned out by those of their male counterparts.
My essay is not a dismissal of Walker's thesis, as I recognize her illustration of Twain's use of the "morally virtuous woman" stereotype, but a closer look at the portrayal of women in the novel with consideration for Goad's generalization. The preliminary significant factor is Goad's and Walker's sex: being women, they have more of an inclination to criticize the representations of their own sex in the novel than I do as a man. Judith Fetterleg discusses the conflict women encounter when reading nineteenth and twentieth-century American literature: "...the female reader is co-opted into participation in an experience from which she is explicitly excluded; she is asked to identify with a selfhood that defines itself in opposition to her; she is required to identify against herself" (xii). I consider it an advantage to be able to critically look at Huck Finn without preestablished conflict, (being of the same sex as the novel's author and intended audience), while testing t... ... middle of paper ... ...ing for Huck. Works Cited Fetterleg, Judith.