The roles of women and how they were treated during the 1800’s are portrayed throughout Little Women, while also demonstrating how the main characters deal with these conformity norms. Through the 4 sisters, Alcott depicts different ways they dealt with being a woman during nineteenth-century expectations. While two conform, the other two attempt to rebel against the standards. Alcott doesn’t imply that one way is necessarily better than the other, but she shows that one is more realistic than the other.
Author Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania in 1832, which is the same time setting she set the book in. She was raised in a small town north of Boston, called Concord, which was also home to many famous writers of the time who greatly influenced her and her writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau and Nathaniel Hawthorne were neighbors to the Alcott family. All of these writers were part of the transcendentalist movement during the New England Renaissance.
During the 1800’s, especially in the beginning, the American society was run by males. They were seen superior to women in nearly every way. They got the best education, they were paid the most, they had the only voice in the family, and they had complete control over women. Especially at home, women weren’t respected. The father was the highest voice and everybody was expected to listen to the father. A woman’s roles at home included taking care of the children, cooking, cleaning and doing whatever her husband asked of her. A women’s money belonged to her father if she wasn’t married. If she was married, they money belonged to her husband. It was because of these reasons that men looked for wealthy women to marry so they could have more mon...
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At the time of the writing of the novel, society and women’s rights were slowly increasing. Through the four March sisters, Alcott depicts ways that women dealt with the norms of the time. Meg, marries young and creates a family; Beth is dutiful to her sisters and parents; Amy focuses on herself and her own beliefs and likes, which Amy does at first, but later settles into life as a lady; and Jo’s struggle to find a professional life, but also live a dutiful family life. While Meg and Beth conform to the 1800’s women expectations, Jo and Amy attempt to break away, and be individuals. Eventually, they both settle into a customary way of life. Alcott doesn’t suggest that one woman is stronger or weaker, nor does she suggest that in the end you must always rebel or conform, but she does recognize that one is more realistic than the other.
Both Alcott and Hawthorne provide brilliant examples of feminists and both, though different, are perfect for showing the complexities of American women. While many women make their cause global, many others contain their goals locally, and both are worthy of supporting feminism. Zenobia and Hope stand as examples of inredible characters that provide a Victorian era with a view of womanhood not often noticed.
In the 1920's women's roles were soon starting to change. After World War One it was called the "Jazz Age", known for new music and dancing styles. It was also known as the "Golden Twenties" or "Roaring Twenties" and everyone seemed to have money. Both single and married women we earning higher- paying jobs. Women were much more than just staying home with their kids and doing house work. They become independent both financially and literally. Women also earned the right to vote in 1920 after the Nineteenth Amendment was adopted. They worked hard for the same or greater equality as men and while all this was going on they also brought out a new style known as the flapper. All this brought them much much closer to their goal.
In the story Little Women, the sisters all have to work together when their mother leaves. Mrs. March leaves to meet with the girls’ father after she is told he has become ill. During the weeks Mrs. March is gone it’s a test for the girls’ work ethic, since their mother is not there to tell them to do their work. The March girls start to change after a couple of weeks.
For readers who observe literature through a feminist lens, they will notice the depiction of female characters, and this makes a large statement on the author’s perception of feminism. Through portraying these women as specific female archetypes, the author creates sense of what roles women play in both their families and in society. In books such as The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the roles that the main female characters play are, in different instances, both comparable and dissimilar.
towards African Americans are presented in number of works of scholars from all types of divers
A study conducted by Lenore Weitzman in the late 1960’s found that many children’s stories had very few female characters and when female characters were present they abided by typical gender roles. However, when books featuring female characters that stepped out of these traditional roles started being published, children were able to develop new ideas of what roles were acceptable for women to fulfill (Feely). Similarly, Carson McCullers uses Miss Amelia, Cousin Lymon, and Marvin Macy to display how those who abide by gender roles are seen by their communities as well as how those who do not are typically viewed. For example, Cousin Lymon exhibited more feminine characteristics and was generally seen as a gossip and a nuisance by the townspeople. Marvin Macy, on the other hand, was a very handsome, masculine man who was described as an “evil character” (McCullers 27) that had a horrible reputation, yet he was still adored by many women in the town.
Women were perceived as either being a housewife, a nurturer, or a person for company. They did not have the right to vote till later on, work, and if they had an opinion that a male do not agree with, women are considered “wicked”; not savvy, not prudent but wicked to the core. It is unfair, unethical, atrocious, but through it all there was one female who dared to challenge the mind of men and the notion that women can be more than what men perceive them as being. Her name is Margaret Fuller. The goals of Margaret Fuller were precise. Men should realize that women are not an epitome of a statue but human beings, just as men, women can achieve full adulthood and citizenship, but most vitally Margaret aimed to change the assumptions about
In her younger years, Jane shows that girls do not need to follow society’s normalities through the defiance of her aunt, Mrs. Reed. As a young orphan, Jane lives with her aunt and her three children, and due to Jane’s “plain looks” and “quiet yet passionate character,” she is disliked among the entire Reed family (Gao). Her cousin, John, constantly reminds her of her social standing, calling her a “dependent” who should not “live with gentlemen’s children” like her cousins (Bronte 10). Rather than acting in accordance with her cousin, Jane, in rage of how she is treated with “miserable cruelty” (Bronte 36), Jane compares him to a “murderer...a slave driver...like the Roman emperors” (Bronte 10). Because of her refusal to submit to John Reed’s aggressiveness and accept that she is lesser than him and his family, Jane is punished for the night by her Aunt Reed. Mrs. Reed’s punishment of Jane demonstrates her part in the oppression ‘machine.’ Mrs. Reed should have understood Jane’s refusal to be docile, being a woman herself, but ...
Comparing the Roles of Women in Arcadia, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Look Back in Anger
“Women’s roles were constantly changing and have not stopped still to this day.” In the early 1900s many people expected women to be stay at home moms and let the husbands support them. But this all changes in the 1920s, women got the right to vote and began working from the result of work they have done in the war. Altogether in the 1920s women's roles have changed drastically.
Little Women shows the independence of the March sisters, what actions make them independent, and how they become independent women. The Laurence and March family show every different kind of love in this story, from love of family to romance. The March girls and Laurie Laurence face challenges and are taught that, in the end, experiencing problems in life are there to teach them to learn from their past mistakes, ultimately helping them grow and make wiser choices in the future. Unbelievably different from when they were teenagers, Jo, Meg, Beth, Amy, and Laurie grow tremendously by learning happiness, love, and independence. In Little Women, Louisa May Alcott depicts female independence, love, and coming of age through the lives of the March family.
The story Little Women takes place at a time when women were taking on uncustomary roles like physical laborer, family protector and provider, and military volunteer while their husbands served during the Civil War. Keeping within the boundaries of the time, Louisa May Alcott uses herself and her own three sisters to create this classical novel from personal experiences. Each sister is different. They each set goals and dreams for their selves whether it goes along with their contemporary society or not. With the assistance of their mother, friends and experiences, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy struggle between their personal expectations and society’s expectations as they plan for their future and choose their destinies.
During the 1800s, society believed there to be a defined difference in character among men and women. Women were viewed simply as passive wives and mothers, while men were viewed as individuals with many different roles and opportunities. For women, education was not expected past a certain point, and those who pushed the limits were looked down on for their ambition. Marriage was an absolute necessity, and a career that surpassed any duties as housewife was practically unheard of. Jane Austen, a female author of the time, lived and wrote within this particular period. Many of her novels centered around women, such as Elizabeth Bennet of Pride and Prejudice, who were able to live independent lives while bravely defying the rules of society. The roles expected of women in the nineteenth century can be portrayed clearly by Jane Austen's female characters of Pride and Prejudice.
Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. Louisa wasn’t like every other girl in her time in fact she was nothing her family and nineteenth century New England required her to be as a young girl. She stated “no boy could be my friend until I had beaten him in a race and no girl if she refused to climb trees, leap fences, and be a tomboy.” In all she was her own person or as she was taught to see it willful, selfish, and proud (Bronson Alcott). She was the second of four girls born to Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May. Her father was a transcendentalist, philosopher, and educational experimenter, and her mom stayed home and raised her and her sisters on practical Christianity.
Rebekka, Lina, Florens, and Sorrow all experience the unimportant role of females during this time. The four women live in fear for their lives, and are subject to the merciless world filled with men and hierarchy. It does not matter whether you are a slave, free, European, or African. If you are a woman, you are presumed to aid for others, and anything that you want to do or be in life is disregarded. Women are not given the chance to truly live they way that they want to, and are stripped of their right to freedom and an unrestricted