The Awakening, much like Bovary, features a woman who is unhappy with her life, and wishes to find new adventures. The two books bear very strong similarities to each other, and the plots are almost exactly the same, though there are some subtle differences. Set in two old cities in France, Emma Bovary, the main character in the first book, is not content with her life. She lives in a small town with a husband who is a well off doctor. She is not like many other women though; early in her life, her father sends her to a convent type school so that she can have an education away from the other less desirable parts of society.
And, as we read through ‘like water for chocolate’, it is noticed that Tita wanted to escape her controlled life which practically could only happen if mama Elena would realize the importance of marriage and its values, which was not possible seeing the nature of mama Elena. Tita never explicitly wished that Mama Elena die, but her death was the only way out to her world of happiness, romance and freedom. Hence, the readers see the importance of death in tita’s life leading her to freedom. . Flaubert shows repeated images of Emma trying to free herself from the ordinaries of life by reading novels, day dreaming when she was younger, and moving from one town to another and fantasizing as she got older.
“The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.”1 Such powerful words were found in the famous romance novels of Charlotte Bronte. Through her novels Jane Eyre and The Professor Bronte’s life experiences were reflected by her main characters as they sought independence, conceived images as symbols of important events in their lives, and they exhibited commitment to their goals. Like Charlotte Bronte both William Crimsworth and Jane Eyre encountered hardships early in their lives therefore they sought independence. Crimsworth’s need to leave his brother Edward and Hunsden reflected the independence “[sought] by Charlotte in order to pursue her career as a governess.”2 Since Bronte’s mother died when Charlotte was very young her father allowed their aunt to educate and raise the children until they were old enough to seek a career. Their aunt was a stern woman and “was rather content receiving obedience than affection”3 which is similar to the character of Aunt Reed in Jane Eyre.
Many Victorian critics were shocked by Barrett Browning's female rebellion, which was rare for the era. With her autobiographical epic poem, Aurora Leigh provoked critics who were "scandalized by its radical revision of Victorian ideals of femininity" (P.1859). In the age of Modernism, women were finally given the some rights to a higher education and professionalism i n 1928 (p.2175). However, female poets of early Modernism, such as Virginia Woolf, were raised in the Victorian age. Rebellion toward "Victorian sexual norms and gender roles" (P.2175) are reflected in Woolf's modern literary piece, such as The Lady in the Looking-Glass: A Reflection.
At age eight, she announced that she wanted to be a poet; her mother was proud of her, but her father loathed her even more because of it. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston shows Janie’s struggle for self-realization through love by all of Janie’s conquests. From her search of love from: the pear tree, Nanny, Logan, Jody, and Tea Cake, Janie finds herself. The symbol of the pear tree relates to Janie’s coming of age, and makes Janie want to find marriage and to see the world. Nanny was dissolving this image by making her marry Logan Killicks.
Chopin demonstrates through Edna that she believes that marriage without love is harmful for a woman. “Go away” (Chopin, p.110) she says tells her husband, “you bother me” (Chopin, p.63). In this way she is going against every social rule of the time and chooses her own way. Her initial flirt with Robert gives her a taste of a world she has never before relished, and the gap to become a plain housewife again becomes wider and wider. Chopin seems deliberately want to make sure the reader understands the dilemmas that the character of Edna confronted as married woman and individual.
The Female Struggle to Fit into Society in Little Women The Victorian Era hailed many prolific authors, which were mostly male. A woman who wanted to be a writer at this time was not respected and would have been accused of being whimsical and flighty. However, women such as Louisa May Alcott redefined the norms and followed her heart with her pen by writing Little Women. The novel follows the lives of the four March sisters – Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March – detailing their passage from childhood to womanhood trying to find their place in society. Even though so much has changed in the last fifty years, gender roles still take a huge toll in society.
The novel unfolds the life of a woman who feels dissatisfied and restrained by the expectations of society. Leonce Pontellier, her husband is declared “…the best husband in the world” (Chopin 6). Edna is forced to admit that she knew of none better. Edna married Leonce because he courted her earnestly and her father was opposed to her marriage to a Catholic. “Edna felt that her marriage would anchor her to the conventional standards of society and end her infatuation” (Skaggs 30).
Because of this, Anne is reunited with the man she fell in love with eight years prior, Captain Wentworth. She once rejected his proposal of marriage after believing that he lacked in both social status and money. However, Austen persuades readers to follow Anne and her journey, giving them an opportunity to see her mature and come to terms that there is something more to a person than his or her status or money. From the very first sentence, one can see that social class is an important theme in Persuasion. As the reader continues with the novel, the thoughts on class being important is made all the more apparent.
The irony of the ending is that Louise Mallard doesn’t die of joy as the doctor claim, but actually from the loss of joy. Specially, her husband’s death gives her a glimpse of a new life, and when that new life is swiftly taken away, the shock and disappointment kill her. The joy Mrs. Mallard actually felt was the idea of relief of being free from the bonds of marriage and the hope of living her life for her o... ... middle of paper ... ...ndreds, women were not allowed to be persons of their own, but were looked up as a shadow of their husbands. In those days, they were to be stay at home mothers and to abide by the rules that were set by their husbands. The writer brought out the truth of what married women were expected to abide by in the late eighteen hundreds.