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An Argument on how female education existed within the Coquette The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton narrates the tribulations of an unmarried woman in post-revolutionary America. The author Hannah Webster Foster uses the story of Miss Wharton as an allegory of female moral decay. The highly patriarchal demands that women be submissive, domestic, and married. However, the protagonist Eliza Wharton has conflicting ideas of her expectations within the society. She is highly intelligent and yearns for self-determination. Though the novel is about seduction, Foster significantly altered the basic structure of novels at the time by relating it from the female perspective. The result is a novel that explores several significant themes in post-revolutionary America among them, the existence, and the need for female education. Foster views female education as a means for women to enrich themselves. She uses
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In the 18th century, reading novels served as a pass time and a diversion from household chores for the women. Though formal female education is not developed, the female characters are seen having a keen interest in books, something that was earlier frowned upon for the sentimental content of books might be destructive to societal values. At the time, books were meant to teach and reflect upon the socially acceptable ideas of romance, courtship, and marriage. We find Miss Wharton asking for books to read from her friend Mrs. Lucy Sumner, “Send me some new books; not such, however, as will require much attention. Let them be plays or novels, or anything else that will amuse and extort a smile.” (Foster, 192) Mrs. Sumner sends her novels which she considers “chaste and of a lighter reading” (Foster, 196). We can thus construe that books and novels in The Coquette though meant for reading pleasure, also play form part of the female
This essay will explore the social interactions between characters, the effects of appearance on their relationships and how this drives them to make certain decisions. This includes how the claustrophobia of their society is portrayed and its effects through form, style and literary techniques. All four texts explore the conflict between public and private selves. In Othello , Shakespeare reveals the taboo surrounding an interracial sexual relationship between a black man and a white woman during the Sixteenth Century. In Hardy’s Nineteenth Century novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles , we see the clash between sexuality, laws and codes of the time. I will compare these texts to The Franklin’s Tale and Pride and Prejudice , looking at how the rigid codes of courtly love impact on male and female behaviour within relationships and how the social and cultural attitudes and values of Regency England influence young women in their marriage choices.
In her article, "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860," Barbara Welter discusses the nineteenth-century ideal of the perfect woman. She asserts that "the attributes of True Womanhood . . . could be divided into four cardinal virtues-piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity." Furthermore, she adds that "if anyone, male or female, dared to tamper with the complex virtues which made up True Womanhood, he was damned immediately as an enemy of God, of civilization and of the Republic" (Welter 152). In Hannah W. Foster's The Coquette, the characters Major Sanford and Eliza Wharton violate True Womanhood condemning them both to wretched fates.
Haney-Peritz, Janice. "Monumental feminism and literature's ancestral house: Another look at The Yellow Wallpaper". Women's Studies. 12:2 (1986): 113-128.
One of the corner stones in gothic literature is the characterization of female characters as weak and submissive. This notion can be tracked all the way back to 1764, when Horace Walpole wrote what many assume to be the first gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. When the sickly Conrad dies, his sister Matilda expresses her apprehension to her attendant Bianca over the increased scorn of Manfred. “No, Bianca; his heart was ever the stranger to me – but he is my father, and I must not complain,” (Pg. 37). Matilda understands what her role in the household is and accepts it, despite of Manfred’s increased scorn. Matilda, as well as the other female characters, exhibits no negative or evil traits or thoughts yet are treated with nothing but contempt. They are submissive for no real reason beside from that was how men expected women to be in the time of the novel. The purpose of this essay is to show that if the reader does not understand the feature of the
The Coquette, written by Hannah Webster Foster in 1797, chronicles the life of an affluent woman in the 18th century. There are a few themes that are presented throughout the whole novel: correspondence, sexual freedom, and ideal womanhood. Elizabeth Whitman has been an icon of American history since the 19th century because of her bravery and contempt for the caged position of women in society. It is stated that the tombstone of Elizabeth Whitman is a popular tourist attraction; “her grave was a popular destination for New England travelers, who beat paths to the far corner of Danvers’s Old South Cemetery through the entire nineteenth century.” (Waterman)
The novel “Women Without class” by Julie Bettie, is a society in which the cultural you come from and the identity that was chosen for you defines who you are. How does cultural and identity illustrate who we are or will become? Julie Bettie demonstrates how class is based on color, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The author describes this by researching her work on high school girls at a Central Valley high school. In Bettie’s novel she reveals different cliques that are associated within the group which are Las Chicas, Skaters, Hicks, Preps, and lastly Cholas and Cholos. The author also explains how race and ethnicity correspondence on how academically well these students do. I will be arguing how Julie Bettie connects her theories of inequality and culture capital to Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Karl Marx and Engels but also how her research explains inequality among students based on cultural capital and identity.
When reading The Coquette by Hannah Webster Foster a reader might wonder is this novel proto-feminist? Is Foster condemning the patriarchal society that she is living in? Or is she writing this novel as a cautionary tale as to what women should not do for them to not end up like the main character Eliza Wharton? The answer to the question as to whether this novel is proto feminist, is not a simple yes or no. This essay will examine that The Coquette is both a proto-feminist novel and a cautionary t
In 1928, Virginia Woolf was asked to speak on the topic of “women and fiction”. The result, based upon two essays she delivered at Newnham and Girton that year, was A Room of One’s Own, which is an extended essay on women as both writers of fiction and as characters in fiction. While Woolf suggests that, “when a subject is highly controversial-and any question about sex is that-one cannot hope to tell the truth,” (Woolf 4) her essay is, in fact, a thought out and insightful reflection on the topic. The main point she offers is that a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Within the essay Woolf centers on the economic constraints that society inflicts on women, resulting in financial dependency on men and ignorance because of lack of education.
Women in Literature: Reading Through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003. Print. The. Bailey, Carol. "
Les Femmes Savantes The Learned Ladies is an astounding play. As each new character enters time transforms characters are bedazzled, enchanted and wigged we know we are sharing the stage with royalty. The women’s gowns are extremely detailed with hoop shirts to make them puffy the men are wearing exceptionally detailed waistcoats. This comical drama is set in the living room or “salon” of the family. This plays plot is focused on one major couples chaotic and forbidden love. The characters are joined by blood and lead by the controlling wife, Philamonte (Maya Jackson) and her weak spouse Chrysale (Edward Brown III). Jackson’s voice is directing with a profound tone that would have the capacity to stop anybody dead in their tracks. It is not
Fatal Women of Romanticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. E-book. In this book, Craciun analyses the way that women writers of the 19th century either contributed to or challenged Romantic stereotypes about their own gender. This source was useful to my research because it examined not only Romantic stereotypes about women, but also the real women of the Romantic Period.
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” shows in society how a woman should be placed and what it means to be a woman. A women doesn’t question her partner, instead she is subservient to him. A woman’s duties include staying at home taking care of the children and cooking; while the man works and brings home the money. A feministic approach to Kincaid’s “Girl” points to the idea of the stereotypes that women can only be what they do in the home, they should only be pure and virtuous, and their main focus should be satisfying their husband.
I am writing a new introduction to the English edition (1987) of Reading the Romance (1984), in which I study the particular nature of the relationship between audiences and texts. My theoretical claim to be doing something new will seem odd to a British audience. Nevertheless, my book takes up questions that British feminists and cultural studies scholars have tackled. I would like to discuss those questions, and so say something about the political implications of Reading the Romance (p. 62).
The history of the romance novel remains lengthy, hotly disputed and obstinately convoluted. This short and thus glaringly incomplete summary will focus on the central works that inspired romance novels, one societal trend that helped the romance novel evolve and gain popularity, and the genre’s emergence into the modern era with the help of Harlequin and Mills & Boon. Regis notes that the romance novel was born of, but not limited to, five notable literary works: Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Anthony Trollope’s Framley Parsonage (1860), and E. M. Forster’s Room with a View (1908) (55). These works, now universally recognized as examples of literary fiction,