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The portrayal of women in 19th century literature
Portrayal of women in literature
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Over a period of time, the mind of humans have evolved, more so to situations of morals and how everyone should play a certain role in society. Each novel or piece of writing we read in the course chronological truly explains the transitioning of how many viewing the world. From conformity to stereotypical opinions on how women should behave in society.
It starts off with the novel Charlotte’s Letter, the main character was Hester Prynne, she represents women of today's generations. Hester truly showed that she did not to conform the society wanted her too. She wanted to display her own opinion and belief and she would be able to receive recognition by her actions. Reason being she was not necessarily exiled but was cast out of the Puritan society because she did not behave like a Puritan women should.
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She played the role of a housewife of course; housewife who took care of the kids and always at the demand of her spouse. They sacrificed themselves to their family, a “stay at home” was almost like a 24/7 job. Edna is already different from the conformed women, spiritually and physically. She had the desire to fulfill her own wishes and and speaking up for her own thoughts and ideas. Speaking up was the only way for her to be true herself. Edna as like a confined in her household, but she was the only one at the time rebelling. Ambitious to finding her own own grounds, she pushes away her friends and spouse to achieve her goal. She want work on her self-reflection if she isolated herself from her loved ones, seems careless but that how it worked for her. Edna begins to act in accordance with her own desires rather than behaving with upper-class societal expectations, although behind doors marriage seemed have issues of its own. Edna grew a talent for art. Her paintings illustrated that she was searching for
Edna’s recognition of herself as an individual as opposed to a submissive housewife is controversial because it’s unorthodox. When she commits suicide, it’s because she cannot satisfy her desire to be an individual while society scorns her for not following the traditional expectations of women. Edna commits suicide because she has no other option. She wouldn’t be fulfilled by continuing to be a wife and a mother and returning to the lifestyle that she led before her self-discovery.
Literature is very interesting when there is a change in the protagonist. They can start out bad but turn out good in the end. Being the protagonist of a novel and changing your ways can affect the story and give it a great plot twist. There is a story in literature that contains a person that made a bad decision. A victim of sin, Hester Prynne, emerges as a determined, loving, and strong heroine, living her own life in The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Essentially, Edna is not able to fulfill any of the roles that are presented by Chopin in the novel: mother, sister, daughter, wife, friend, artist, lover to either man, and finally the traditional role of a woman in society. She does not quite fit into any niche, and thus her suicide at the end of the novel is the only way for Edna’s story to end. Chopin must have Edna die, as she cannot survive in this restrained society in which she does not belong to. The idea of giving yourself completely to serve another, Edna declares “that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one” (47). However, her awakening is also a realization of her underprivileged position in a male dominated society. The first sign that Edna is becoming comfortable with herself, and beginning to loosen the constrictions of not being an individual is when she asks Robert, her husband, to retrieve her shawl: "When he returned with the shawl she took it and kept it in her hand. She did not put it around her" (30). Edna is trying to establish herself as an artist in a society where there is no tradition of women as creative beings. For any woman to suggest a desire for a role outside the domestic sphere, as more than a mother or housewife, was perceived as
When Edna felt dissatisfied with the life she is given, she pursues other ways in which to live more fully. She attempts painting and enters into an affair with another man. As her desire for freedom grows, she moves out of her husband’s house and tries to live life as she sees fit. She lives a life reflecting her new philosophies towards life, philosophies that are in conflict with that of society. The oppression by man caused Edna to have a social awakening, illuminating the meaning of the novel.
She desperately wanted a voice and independence. Edna’s realization of her situation occurred progressively. It was a journey in which she slowly discovered what she was lacking emotionally. Edna’s first major disappointment in the novel was after her husband, Leonce Pontellier, lashed out at her and criticized her as a mother after she insisted her child was not sick. This sparked a realization in Edna that made here realize she was unhappy with her marriage. This was a triggering event in her self discovery. This event sparked a change in her behavior. She began disobeying her husband and she began interacting inappropriately with for a married woman. Edna increasingly flirted with Robert LeBrun and almost instantly became attracted to him. These feelings only grew with each interaction. Moreover, when it was revealed to Edna that Robert would be leaving for Mexico she was deeply hurt not only because he didn’t tell her, but she was also losing his company. Although Edna’s and Robert’s relationship may have only appeared as friendship to others, they both secretly desired a romantic relationship. Edna was not sure why she was feeling the way she was “She could only realize that she herself-her present self-was in some way different from the other self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored
Lastly Edna abandons all ideals of being a perfect domestic housewife and mother in order to follow her passions and become an artist. Through these scandalous actions Edna Pontellier carves a path for women to follow in her footsteps to liberation and individuality.
Before then she was a spirited woman who was struggling against the traditional binary gender roles. Margaret and Edna parallel each other as they both exhibit masculine characteristics and do not fit in the mould of the 19th century. Edna is even described as a ‘’not a mother-woman’’ (19). She believes that she has no choice in her life. When Mademoiselle Reisz plays a piano piece, it stirs countless emotions inside of Edna. She imagines a man ‘’standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore. He was naked’’ (65). This is a symbol that Edna believes to be impossible for her. That symbol is of freedom. The man has shed all of his weight, his oppression and Edna wonders if this will ever be possible for her. As a woman, she might never be equal and will forever be oppressed and supressed. However, that very night, Edna stands up for herself and gains this awakening. Starting from this symbolic image that she imagines as she listens to the music, she starts to grow into the person she truly is. Chopin writes ‘’ a feeling of exultation overtook her, as if some power of significant import had been given her to control the working of her body and her soul’’ (70). Later that night she refused to go in with her husband, instead sleeping outside. She ‘’began to feel like one who awakens gradually out of a dream, a delicious, grotesque, impossible dream, to feel again the realities pressing into her soul’’. Edna was
In Chopin's Awakening, the reader meets Edna Pontellier, a married woman who attempts to overcome her "fate", to avoid the stereotypical role of a woman in her era, and in doing so she reveals the surrounding. society's assumptions and moral values about women of Edna's time. Edna helps to reveal the assumptions of her society. The people surrounding her each day, particularly women, assume their roles as "housewives"; while the men are free to leave the house, go out at night, gamble, drink and work. Edna surprises her associates when she takes up painting, which represents a working job and independence for Edna.
In the end, her internal conflict tears her apart and, to escape the feeling of entrapment, she drowns herself. Edna’s internal journey reflects the struggles of women during the Victorian era, as well as the meaning of the novella as a whole. Gender roles of the time confined women to living as married housewives with children. These limitations and expectations were a seemingly pressing issue for Chopin and other women of her time. Edna’s journey also highlights the importance of finding oneself apart from their duties.
When her husband and children are gone, she moves out of the house and purses her own ambitions. She starts painting and feeling happier. “There were days when she was very happy without knowing why. She was happy to be alive and breathing when her whole being seemed to be one with the sunlight, the color, the odors, the luxuriant warmth of some perfect Southern day” (Chopin 69). Her sacrifice greatly contributed to her disobedient actions. Since she wanted to be free from a societal rule of a mother-woman that she never wanted to be in, she emphasizes her need for expression of her own passions. Her needs reflect the meaning of the work and other women too. The character of Edna conveys that women are also people who have dreams and desires they want to accomplish and not be pinned down by a stereotype.
As the novel starts out Edna is a housewife to her husband, Mr. Pontellier, and is not necessarily unhappy or depressed but knows something is missing. Her husband does not treat her well. "...looking at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage." She is nothing but a piece of property to him; he has no true feelings for her and wants her for the sole purpose of withholding his reputation. "He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose on earth was it?" Mr. Pontellier constantly brings her down for his own satisfaction not caring at all how if affects Edna.
Edna seeks occupational freedom in art, but lacks sufficient courage to become a true artist. As Edna awakens to her selfhood and sensuality, she also awakens to art. Originally, Edna “dabbled” with sketching “in an unprofessional way” (Chopin 543). She could only imitate, although poorly (Dyer 89). She attempts to sketch Adèle Ratignolle, but the picture “bore no resemblance” to its subject. After her awakening experience in Grand Isle, Edna begins to view her art as an occupation (Dyer 85). She tells Mademoiselle Reisz that she is “becoming an artist” (Chopin 584). Women traditionally viewed art as a hobby, but to Edna, it was much more important than that. Painting symbolizes Edna’s independence; through art, she breaks free from her society’s mold.
The most prevalent and obvious gender issue present in the novella was that Edna challenged cultural norms and broke societal expectations in an attempt to define herself. Editors agree, “Edna Pontellier flouts social convention on almost every page…Edna consistently disregards her ‘duties’ to her husband, her children, and her ‘station’ in life” (Culley 120). Due to this, she did not uphold what was expected of her because she was trying to be superior, and women were expected to be subordinate to men. During that time, the women were viewed as possessions that men controlled. It was the woman’s job to clean the house, cook the meals, and take care of the children, yet Edna did none of these things. Her lifestyle was much different. She refused to listen to her husband as time progressed and continually pushed the boundaries of her role. For example, during that time period “the wife was bound to live with her husban...
She cleans, entertains, and takes care of the children. Her diversion from her usual routine as a mother woman is started by her own inward questioning when she goes down to the beach with Adele Ratignolle and she asks her what she is thinking. Edna expresses a want to know herself, even though Adele and many others tell her that it is a useless wish. Edna has no one who truly understands her; she is isolated from society by a barrier of self knowledge that they deem madness. The only person who might understand is Robert, who she loves. But even he turns pale when Edna speaks derisively of his want for her husband to give her to him, saying that she can give herself to whomever she chooses. There is no one in the novel who has the same mindset as Edna. The isolation and pressure from society and her husband adds to her madness, cumulating in an eventual breakdown where she smashes a vase and throws off her wedding ring. The casting away of her ring symbolizes Edna throwing off the shackles of society and a loveless marriage to be her own person. She stamps on the ring, showing her distaste for her path in life and her choices in the past. Edna’s madness, and break down, show her deteriorating patience with her life and the mothering façade she wears day to day. Society views her as mad when she moves out of her husband’s house to live on her own. She breaks away from her life to set herself
Throughout all the sinful things Hester Prynne has done, she still managed to obtain good qualities. Hester was an adulterer from the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hester was looked down upon by the citizens of Boston because of the sin she and another person committed, but no one knew who her partner in crime was because she refused to release his name. Towards the very end of the story Hester’s accomplice confessed and left Hester and Pearl feeling joyous, because now they didn’t have to keep in a secret. Hester is a trustworthy, helpful, and brave woman throughout The Scarlet Letter.