The history of women’s education is long and winding, and it is nearly impossible to overstate the evolution that has taken place in that time. An outdated focus on appealing to men with vapid accomplishments has been replaced by teaching critical thinking and useful skills, and nowhere is this contrast more obvious than in a college classroom, as a predominately female student body analyzes Victorian texts. In that setting, it comes as a pleasant surprise that all literature from the time shows support for the era’s education methods. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, for one, illustrates a keen perspective on the realities of women’s education of the time by carefully structuring a coming-of-age narrative around the difficulties of assimilating to the problematic system. Against a backdrop of tellingly-portrayed settings, Browning uses her characters to highlight the futility and ultimately destructive nature of the Victorian English system of women’s education.
The first character introduced is, arguably, England itself. England is presented with a first glimpse of “frosty cliffs”, and Aurora subsequently despairs over the dismal landscape of her new home (251). Immediately, England is established as an unwelcoming place for the free-spirited and Italian-raised Aurora. She clearly misses her homeland, “as the earth feels the sun at nights,” and this imagery of Italy as the sun contrasts strongly with the gray, grim portrayal of England (475). Italy produced Aurora’s free spirit and individuality, something the very landscape of England seems to reject. Even before education is discussed, Browning uses the settings of the story to underscore the goals country has for its women, and England’s Victorian ideal is alrea...
... middle of paper ...
...wrapped neatly within a more innocuous form, Aurora Leigh has stood the test of time. Browning could never have seen the changes in women’s education that were to come, but her work helped to show some of the major failings in women’s education – after all, how could a woman act as the moral compass for her family if her feelings had been stripped from her? An education that deprives a woman of her sense of self leads inevitably to generations of weak women raising more weak women, but this streak was broken, in part by authors like Browning, who paved the way for a system in which women are not only educated, but able to discuss the history of their education at will.
Works Cited
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. "From Aurora Leigh Book I" The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. Gen. ed. Julia Reidhead. 9th ed. Vol. E. New York: Norton, 2012. 1138-
43. Print.
History has underrepresented females throughout countless centuries. In contrast, Hawthorne allows them to take on essential roles in “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “and “The Birthmark.” The way he presents them distinguishes his stories from others at his time. He proves all of his female characters almost flawless, deeply connects the male protagonists to them, and uses them to reveal the males’ hidden sides.
As mentioned above, women’s role were unjust to the roles and freedoms of the men, so an advanced education for women was a strongly debated subject at the beginning of the nineteenth century (McElligott 1). The thought of a higher chance of education for women was looked down upon, in the early decades of the nineteenth century (The American Pageant 327). It was established that a women’s role took part inside the household. “Training in needlecraft seemed more important than training in algebra” (327). Tending to a family and household chores brought out the opinion that education was not necessary for women (McElligott 1). Men were more physically and mentally intellectual than women so it was their duty to be the educated ones and the ones with the more important roles. Women were not allowed to go any further than grammar school in the early part of the 1800’s (Westward Expansion 1). If they wanted to further their education beyond grammar, it had to be done on their own time because women were said to be weak minded, academically challenged and could n...
Education did not form part of the life of women before the Revolutionary War and therefore, considered irrelevant. Women’s education did not extend beyond that of what they learned from their mothers growing up. This was especially true for underprivileged women who had only acquired skills pertaining to domesticity unlike elite white women during that time that in addition to having acquired domestic skills they learned to read a result becoming literate. However, once the Revolutionary War ended women as well as men recognized the great need for women to obtain a greater education. Nonetheless, their views in regards to this subject differed greatly in that while some women including men believed the sole purpose of educating women was in order to better fulfil their roles and duties as wives and mothers others believed the purpose of education for women was for them “to move beyond the household field.” The essays of Benjamin Rush and Judith Sargent Murray provide two different points of view with respects to the necessity for women to be well educated in post-revolutionary America.
Throughout history, women have struggled with, and fought against oppression. They have been held back and weighed down by the sexist ideas of a male dominated society which has controlled cultural, economic and political ideas and structure. During the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s women became more vocal and rebuked sexism and the role that had been defined for them. Fighting with the powerful written word, women sought a voice, equality amongst men and an identity outside of their family. In many literary writings, especially by women, during the mid-1800’s to early 1900’s, we see symbols of oppression and the search for gender equality in society. Writing based on their own experiences, had it not been for the works of Susan Glaspell, Kate Chopin, and similar feminist authors of their time, we may not have seen a reform movement to improve gender roles in a culture in which women had been overshadowed by men.
Victorian fears of educating women were addressed in Martha Vicinus' novel, Independent Women. However I think that one very important issue not discussed in by Vicinus was the joint and separate fears of men and women of educating women. I also think that these fears were not realized entirely in her book and during the Victorian period. In order to determine if their fears were realized we need to look at the individual fears and also apply whose fears they were. I will examine the three view points that I think had the greatest fears and realizations of educating women; men and women together, then men and women's separate fears.
It is strange to think about what the world would be like today if not for women like Isabella Whitney. If not for her, women might still be prohibited from publishing their written works. She and the women who followed in her footsteps created the opening of minds that allowed the possibility of women’s equality to men. I am sure Whitney had no idea the impact she would make not only on literature, but on women, and the world.
There are numerous numbers of novels and books that offer different portrayals of the female gender and femininity in the early nineteenth century, each novel shedding a different light on women, their gender role, and the definition of femininity during this time period. The first thought that pops into most people’s minds is Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman or any Jane Austen novel. People do not typically think of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Nonetheless Frankenstein offers us the reader an extremely well portrayal of the female gender in the early nineteenth century while also providing us with the cautionary tell on why no man should ever attempt to play God for the reason that only God can play God. In this essay I will be discussing how Mary Shelley used the description of femininity her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft created in her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. For that to be done I will analyzing three female characters from the novel and discuss how these characters are leading examples of the early nineteenth century woman. I will be using examples from both A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Frankenstein to support my arguments. Lastly I will discuss what the characteristics of the female characters in the novel say about Mary Shelley’s thoughts on women and femininity during the early nineteenth century.
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...
Katherine Mansfield belongs to a group of female authors that have used their financial resources and social standing to critique the patriarchal status quo. Like Virginia Woolf, Mansfield was socioeconomically privileged enough to write influential texts that have been deemed as ‘proto-feminist’ before the initial feminist movements. The progressive era in which Mansfield writes proves to be especially problematic because, “[w]hile the Modernist tradition typically undermined middle-class values, women … did not have the recognized rights necessary to fully embrace the liberation from the[se] values” (Martin 69). Her short stories emphasized particular facets of female oppression, ranging from gendered social inequality to economic classism, and it is apparent that “[p]oor or rich, single or married, Mansfield’s women characters are all victims of their society” (Aihong 101). Mansfield’s short stories, “The Garden Party” and “Miss Brill”, represent the feminist struggle to identify traditional patriarchy as an inherent caste system in modernity. This notion is exemplified through the social bonds women create, the naïve innocence associated with the upper classes, and the purposeful dehumanization of women through oppressive patriarchal methods. By examining the female characters in “The Garden Party” and “Miss Brill”, it is evident that their relationships with other characters and themselves notify the reader of their encultured classist preconceptions, which is beneficial to analyze before discussing the sources of oppression.
These women authors have served as an eye-opener for the readers, both men and women alike, in the past, and hopefully still in the present. (There are still cultures in the world today, where women are treated as unfairly as women were treated in the prior centuries). These women authors have impacted a male dominated society into reflecting on of the unfairness imposed upon women. Through their writings, each of these women authors who existed during that masochistic Victorian era, risked criticism and retribution. Each author ignored convention a...
In essence, Elizabeth Barrett Browning dramatic monologue proved a powerful medium for Barrett Browning. Taking her need to produce a public poem about slavery to her own developing poetics, Barrett Browning include rape and infanticide into the slave’s denunciation of patriarchy. She felt bound by women’s silence concerning their bodies and the belief that “ a man’s private life was beyond the pale of political scrutiny” (Cooper, 46).
Throughout history, women have been oppressed and seen as subservient to men. Gender differences denied women the right to education, among many factors that men had. Women lived their lives to be wives and mothers while men went to school, held careers, interests passions and individual lives outside of the homes women so rarely left. Mary Wollstonecraft expressed her abhorrence for this injustice in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Later in the same year of 1792, Anna Barbauld responded by attacking Wollstonecraft with her “The Rights of Woman.” Both women present a clear, though opposing argument allowing the reader further insight of the oppression plaguing women in the late eighteenth century.
The literary titles by Frances Power Cobbe, Sarah Stickney Ellis, Charlotte Bronte, Anne Bronte, John Henry Cardinal Newman, Sir Henry Newbolt, and Caroline Norton reveal society's view on women and men during the Victorian era. Throughout the Victorian era, women were treated as inferior and typically reduced to roles as mothers and wives. Some women, however, were fortunate to become governesses or schoolteachers. Nevertheless, these educated women were still at the mercy of men. Males dominated the opinions of women, and limited their influence in society. From an early age, young men were trained to be dominant figures and protectors over their home and country. Not until after World War I would women have some of these same opportunities as men.
The Victorian Era perpetually changed the history of literature; ironically, it was also a time period in which men heavily defined the status of women. A woman was at the mercy of her father before marriage and after marriage was dependent on her husband. Woolf asserts through her literature, that men historically belittled women as a means of asserting their own superiority (Roseman). This masculine desire for status and seniority may be exemplified best in a set of Woolf’s extended essays titled, “A Room of One’s Own.” In these essays, Woolf constructs a metaphor of a looking-glass re...
What I have discussed are two women authors that have faced trials in their lifetimes pertaining to feminism that society had forced upon them. We are given insight into the ways and values of their time and how these experiences influenced their writings. In conclusion, we can see how societal issues concerning the roles of women have differed in principles, but remain the same in the way that there is an unbroken tradition regarding how men and women differ in their roles as well as their perceived rights. Female writers and advocates of women’s rights show these influences with Mary Wollstonecraft using her strong personality and direct writings and Virginia Woolf using her narratives, and both giving us insight to the struggles of an ongoing debate.