Political and personal catastrophes characterized the life of George Sand. She lived in an era where women were treated as second class citizens, she witnessed bloodshed in the streets over political differences, and she also lost many loved ones before their time. During her life, her literary skill also came under scrutiny as many of her contemporaries disliked her writing and chastised Sand for her support of many controversial issues. Despite many drawbacks, she never lost her love of humanity and never gave up hope of gender equality. Many of her beliefs and lost fantasies are present in her last piece of writing. George Sand completed Marianne when she was in her twilight and it serves as a reflection of Sand herself as well as a story of what could have been.
The young woman in Marianne shares many similarities with Sand herself. Through her political experiences, Sand began to champion the cause of the proletariat worker who was forced to live under the laws and restrictions of the overbearing nobility. Similarly, the young woman in Marianne is the head of the household, but still “lives on completely equal terms with the farm-workers and that she takes her meals with them.” (Sand 149). While Sand probably sees herself as no better than any other person, she also desires to be educated. She believes that to become both equal at home and in the political arena, women must seek to educate themselves (French 57). Marianne also longs to be educated, not so much for political ambitions or equality, but for her own good. “I should like to be educated not so much for others’ pleasure as for my own” (Sand 117). While Sand suggests that education is a way out for many women, she also views it as a necessity for even those without...
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...ps Sand’s ideal life would be one of a more quiet nature without all of the political turmoil and needless loss of life while still maintaining her feminist perspectives and thirst for gender equality. While Sand condemned marriage and never entered into another one herself it is hard to imagine her not re-marrying had women been treated as equals given her perspective on love. "There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved” (George Sand Quotes). Since she was unable to live her entire life in a loving relationship, she lives through the young woman in Marianne.
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...is book expresses her ever-changing life and tough it was on the women of this time period.
“Two sets of values coexist, compete, and more than occasionally blur: the ideals of machismo, with its cult of aggressive masculinity, defined as a mode of sexual and physical conquest; and the ideals of the revolutionary New Man, who is envisioned as hard working, devoted and family oriented (Lancaster, 1992; pg. 40).” For women, her traditional role was in the household taking care of the children, cleaning, cooking and washing as would be expected. Furthermore, she was unable to voice her objections or opinions to her husbands’ sometimes abusive tendencies, and from that the New Woman had evolved also. Women started to lose faith in the war, growing tired as they were losing many husbands and sons to the war. Throughout Lancaster’s Life Is Hard, one can watch as the behaviors and society gender roles start to change as the Sandinista Revolution continue...
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In America, the 1890s were a decade of tension and social change. A central theme in Kate Chopin’s fiction was the independence of women. In Louisiana, most women were their husband’s property. The codes of Napoleon were still governing the matrimonial contract. Since Louisiana was a Catholic state, divorce was rare and scandalous. In any case, Edna Pontellier of Chopin had no legal rights for divorce, even though Léonce undoubtedly did. When Chopin gave life to a hero that tested freedom’s limits, she touched a nerve of the politic body. However, not Edna’s love, nor her artistic inner world, sex, or friendship can reconcile her personal growth, her creativity, her own sense of self and her expectations. It is a very particular academic fashion that has had Edna transformed into some sort of a feminist heroine. If she could have seen that her awakening in fact was a passion for Edna herself, then perhaps her suicide would have been avoided. Everyone was forced to observe, including the cynics that only because a young