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Women in English literature throughout the ages
Gender in 20th century English literature
Female inequality throughout literature
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When Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker wrote their Roaring Girl in 1611, they based it loosely on Mary Frith, who was frequenting taverns and playhouses in men’s clothing in London and had to appear in front of the court. Moll is the name of half the prostitutes in London and in their play; we meet Moll Cutpurse, the Roaring Girl. Dekker and Middleton use the unusual girl to criticize the London society. Moll goes between classes to evaluate the people in London as is shown when she talks to Sir Thomas and Lord Noland, stating When next, my lord, you spy any of one of those, So he be in his art a scholar, question him, Tempt him with gold to open the large book Of his close villainies; and you yourself shall cant Better than poor Moll can, and know more laws Of cheaters, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers, Withal the devil’s black guard, than it is fit Should be discovered to a noble wit (5.1. 304-311). Audiences in the playhouses can understand that Moll is criticizing not only the London lower class, but the upper class as well. She might also warn the lord that a good thief could teach him so much, that the lord will be more knowledgeable than Moll, which might not be the best thing for a lord. Moll is the outcast woman that is, however, able to move between the social classes to serve as a nexus that connects and shows the similarities of the upper and the lower classes in the playhouses. Moving between classes is made possible with the help of monetary funds: “Tempt him with gold to open the large book” (5.1.306). Moll shows the audience that this underworld in London is for sale. Money plays a large role in the play, especially since in the global London many exotic goods are for sale, such as tobacco and... ... middle of paper ... ...talism is the great equalizer and that there is a beginning mobility in the classes. Everything has its price and can be purchased, including the bodies of females. Upper classes can have access with the help of money to the lower classes and lower classes can buy their access to the rich, therefore new kinds of identities are emerging, including empowered women, which the booming city of London and the mercantile class help to make possible. Works Cited "cant, v.3." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. 12 March 2014. Middleton, Thomas, Thomas Dekker, and Jennifer Panek. The Roaring Girl: A Norton Critical Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Co Inc, 2011. Print. "rogue, n. and adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. 11 March 2014. "scholar, n." OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. 12 March 2014.
In addition, Britain’s societal transformation augmented women’s role in society, and according to Braybon in “Women Workers in The First World War,” “A completely different pattern of life was established … for women” and that society had “prevailing attitudes towards women as workers” (Braybon 16). The newfangled life given to women gave most women an enormous surge in recognition throughout society, as people valued women a lot more after they became the backbone of the production of nearly all British goods. Concurrently, King underscores this point in her novel, as throughout the novel, Mary is never discriminated against simply for being a woman. In preceding years and throughout history, society typically perceived women as naturally inferior to men, and women’s occupations were limited to taking care of the family and domestic occupations. Nevertheless, the overarching effect of the augmentation of the number of women employed in the British workforce was the society’s realization that women could perform at a level equal to men, and this helped facilitate the women’s rights movement in Britain, a leading factor in Britain’s evolution to a gender equal society. In the novel, throughout Mary Russell’s journeys across Britain, there is not a single time when
In the books Where the Girls are and Coming of Age in Mississippi, the authors portray how they questioned their place within the American society, and how they found their voice to seek opportunities for themselves and others. The childhoods of Douglas and Moody are major factors in these women’s lives and character development. It is through these experiences that they formed their views of the world and learned to understand the world’s view of women. Douglas and Moody had very different experiences for they grew up in different decades, social and economic classes, and races. It is these differences that cause them to have different reactions. Susan Douglass in Where the Girls are and Anne Moody in Coming of Age in Mississippi have different critiques of American society and solutions, because of the differences of what they were exposed to.
American Literature. 6th Edition. Vol. A. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 2003. 783-791
Many other motifs of equality can be found in Bronte’s Jane Eyre. I have learned through this book that in the Victorian Era, there was a major line between the rich, and those in poverty. We learn this through just the few quotes that I have written. Jane was once poor, but threw her uncle’s death she became rich. Life once as a beggar, now able to give to those that beg. When Jane was poor, she was treated like dirt, but because she became rich she was treated with more respect. Thusly, there as much segregation in standings, in the book Jane Eyre.
The plays, Trifles and A Dollhouse use the literary tool of symbolism to portray the way women were treated throughout the nineteenth century. Susan Glaspell uses the bird cage and the dead bird to signify the role and life of women in marriage and society, whereas Henrik Ibsen uses the dollhouse. These symbols allow the reader to recognize the plays main similarities in the treatment of women, such as men dismissing women as trivial and treating them like property; however, the plays portray the women’s lifestyles as different which seal their fates.
With a heart-full of advice and wisdom, Dinah maturates from a simple- minded young girl to a valiant independent individual. “For a moment I weighed the idea of keeping my secret and remaining a girl, the thought passes quickly. I could only be what I was. And that was a woman” (170). This act of puberty is not only her initiation into womanhood but the red tent as well. She is no longer just an observer of stories, she is one of them, part of their community now. On account of this event, Dinah’s sensuality begins to blossom and she is able to conceive the notion of true love.
One Victorian sentiment was that a civilized individual could be determined by her/his appearance. This notion was readily adopted by the upper classes and, among other things, helped shape their views of the lower classes, who certainly appeared inferior to them. In regards to social mobility, members of the upper classes may have (through personal tragedy or loss) often moved to a lower-class status, but rarely did one see an individual move up from the abysmal lower class. Although poverty could be found almost anywhere in Victorian London (one could walk along a street of an affluent neighborhood, turn the corner, and find oneself in an area of depravity and decay), most upper-class Londoners, who tended to dwell in the West End, associated the East End with the lower class.
Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, was written in 1916, reflects the author’s concern with stereotypical concepts of gender and sex roles of that time period. As the title of the play implies, the concerns of women are often considered to be nothing more than unimportant issues that have little or no value to the true work of society, which is being performed by men. The men who are in charge of investigating the crime are unable to solve the mystery through their supposed superior knowledge. Instead, two women are able decipher evidence that the men overlook because all of the clues are entrenched in household items that are familiar mainly to women during this era. Glaspell expertly uses gender characterization, setting, a great deal of symbolism and both dramatic and verbal irony, to expose social divisions created by strict gender roles, specifically, that women were limited to the household and that their contributions went disregarded and underappreciated.
During the Victorian Era, society had idealized expectations that all members of their culture were supposedly striving to accomplish. These conditions were partially a result of the development of middle class practices during the “industrial revolution… [which moved] men outside the home… [into] the harsh business and industrial world, [while] women were left in the relatively unvarying and sheltered environments of their homes” (Brannon 161). This division of genders created the ‘Doctrine of Two Spheres’ where men were active in the public Sphere of Influence, and women were limited to the domestic private Sphere of Influence. Both genders endured considerable pressure to conform to the idealized status of becoming either a masculine ‘English Gentleman’ or a feminine ‘True Woman’. The characteristics required women to be “passive, dependent, pure, refined, and delicate; [while] men were active, independent, coarse …strong [and intelligent]” (Brannon 162). Many children's novels utilized these gendere...
Brown, Rosellen. “Honey Child.” Women’s Review of Books. Vol. 19. No. 7. Philadelphia: Old City Publishing. 2002. 11. Print.
Margaret is an intelligent, articulate, and ambitious woman who desires to rise up in social status by marrying a man of higher social rank. She attends to those above her, in hopes of elevating her status as she becomes closer to the upper-class. As a minor character, she plays a small yet crucial role in advancing Don John’s plot to slander Hero and spoil her wedding. As a lower-class character, Margaret serves as a foil to the rich girls, particularly Hero, who embodies every attitude and mindset Margaret does not. But she also offers an alternative perspective on the upper-class characters in the play. Because Margaret is victimized because of her social ambitions, punished for wanting to rise above her ...
Marxist criticism leaves society thinking that dominant classes overpower social order. However, its goal is to present ideas of changing social realities, so future generations will know all people are important and equal. During the Victorian period, a Governess was faced with contradictory burdens leaving them uneasy with status imbalance. The governess is uncomfortable with the fact that she could be similar to the servants/ghosts, because she still feels that she is above them socially. Her desire to break out of the class structure, yet her inability to do so, shows her dependence on the structure. From her first moments at Bly or the “castle of romance”, she instantly feels the conflict between her emotional...
In Susan Glaspell’s play Trifles Mr. Wright’s murder is never solved because the two women in the story unite against of the arrogance of men to hide evidence that would prove Mrs. Wright as the murderer. The play Trifles is about the death of farmer Mr. Wright and how the town sheriff and attorney try to find evidence that his wife Mrs. Wright killed him. As the play progresses the men’s wives who had come along were discovering important pieces of evidence that prove the men’s theory but chose to hide from them to illustrate the point that their ideas should have been valued and not something to be trifled. The very irony of the play comes from its title trifles and is defined as something that isn’t very important or has no relevance to the situation that it is presented to. In this play the irony of the title comes from the fact that the men find the women’s opinions on the case trifling even though the women solve the crime which ends up being the downfall of the men as they would have been able to prosecute Mrs. Wright if they had listened which made the women’s opinions not trifling. Glaspell was born in an age where women were still considered the property of men and they had no real value in society in the eyes of men except for procreation and motherhood. This attitude towards women was what inspired Glaspell to write the play Trifles and to illustrate the point that women’s attitudes should be just as valued as men’s and to let women have a sense of fulfillment in life and break the shackles that were holding them only as obedient housewives. Trifles was also inspired by a real murder trial that Glaspell had been covering when she was a reporter in the year 1900. Glaspell is a major symbol of the feminist movement of l...
A. “Reading Little Women.” Temple University Press (1984): 151-65. Rpt in Novels for Students. Ed. Elizabeth Thomason.
Weisgall, Deborah. “The Mother of All Girls’ Books.” The American Prospect. n.p. 11 June 2012. Web. 29 March 2014. .