The public when the women first came out writing stories they had no clue what to think about their writings. It wasn’t like the traditional men writing where it kept the reader on the edge of their seats and being entertained. The women wrote more of a darker kind of story to where some people would call it a horror story, it was the first time that women had a voice. Women often talked about one thing and it was freedom, they always feel like they have been trapped. Also men wanted to inform and they had a lot of humor in their stories, where the women did not. Female authors had a much darker, melancholy storyline to their writing, while male authors wrote primarily to entertain their readers.
Female authors were first introduced in the late 1800’s; nobody knew what to expect since women never
…show more content…
A great example is, “The Outcast Of Poker Flat,” by Bret Harte. This story is about about four troublemakers that are banished from Poker flat, John Oakhurst a gambler, uncle Billy a thief, and the duchess and mother shipton who are both prostitutes. They go up to the mountains and they meet a sweet couple about to get married at Poker Flat, Tom and Piney. They all get stuck in a cabin with little food, som they all have to ration it to survive. Uncle Billy eventually wakes up early and takes the mules and takes off so now the outcast can't travel anywhere and it shows a lot about uncle billy's character. Knowing that they're all going to die ms shipton gives her food to piney because she thinks that piney is such a great person and she should live longer than her. The end of the story you can tell that even the worst people can have good hearts, and they all die. This story always wanted the reader to keep reading and it also kept them
Davidson, Cathy N. and Linda Wagner-Martin. The Oxford Companion to Womenâs Writing In The United States. New York: Oxford United Press, 1995.
John Oakhurst is the main character in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”. John is an outstanding person and has some phenomenal traits. Such as that he is unusually calm, courageous, and modest.
Kort, Carol. A to Z of American Women Writers. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2007. Print.
In early American literature, many authors began shifting the focus of their works from the refined upper class citizens to the real every-day experiences of the American people. As a result of this shift, authors began writing about life in the small towns scattered across the United States, while focusing on non-typical and socially and morally lowly characters. A perfect example of this type of writing can be found in “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” a short story written by Bret Harte. In this story we are introduced to four characters, cast from their pioneertown for participating in morally objectionable activities. The four consisted of John Oakhurst, a gambler, Duchess, a prostitute, Mother Shipton, a madam, and Uncle Billy, a local drunk
With the increasing popularity of female-oriented post-secondary education, the growing number of women working outside the home in professional occupations and the newly granted right to suffrage, women directly challenged the traditional notions of American Womanhood in the 1920’s. In just seventy one years since the Seneca Falls Convention, feminists in America accomplished sweeping changes for women politically, economically, and socially. Attempting to reconcile the changing concept of womanhood with more traditional female roles, male writers often included depictions of this “New Woman” in their novels. Frequently, the male writers of the Progressive Era saw the New Woman as challenging the very fabric of society and, subsequently, included
Throughout history, people in power take actions without understanding the consequences, only to regret their actions at the end. For example, the Indian emperor Ashoka the Great attacked the kingdom of Kalinga and caused great destruction. While rejoicing at his victory, he saw the profound sorrow of the survivors, regretted his actions, and renounced war from that point onwards. In the literary world, Edmund Dantès from The Count of Monte Cristo felt regret after taking revenge on the people who sent him to prison and took his fiancée away from him. In “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”, Bret Harte suggests that people should think about the consequences before taking actions that affect others severely. He shows this through the reaction of the search party and the treachery of Uncle Billy.
Audre Lorde In our class discussions and reading, I learned that women were once in charge of the human race, women were a part of a community, no race was inferior or superior, there was peace and harmony in the world until the patriarchal era came, planning to embed itself in the ground for a long time. Women were raped for their identity, their race and their status in society. Men ruled the biblical stories, leaving Mary out. Hence, the war started between the races, women fought to gain their identity back and to do so, they started writing.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Print.
conceptualizations of gender in literature are situated in a culture and historical context ; the
A. Women in Modern America: A Brief History. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1974. Glaspell, Susan. A. Trifles. Making Literature Matter: An Anthology for Readers and Writers. Ed.
Women have a different way of viewing the world, because of the culture not the nature. They tend to write diaries, autobiographies, poetry…because the cultural context in which they write asks for that kind of literature .
“Girls wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it is okay to be a boy; for a girl it is like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading” (McEwan 55-56). Throughout the history of literature women have been viewed as inferior to men, but as time has progressed the idealistic views of how women perceive themselves has changed. In earlier literature women took the role of being the “housewife” or the household caretaker for the family while the men provided for the family. Women were hardly mentioned in the workforce and always held a spot under their husband’s wing. Women were viewed as a calm and caring character in many stories, poems, and novels in the early time period of literature. During the early time period of literature, women who opposed the common role were often times put to shame or viewed as rebels. As literature progresses through the decades and centuries, very little, but noticeable change begins to appear in perspective to the common role of women. Women were more often seen as a main character in a story setting as the literary period advanced. Around the nineteenth century women were beginning to break away from the social norms of society. Society had created a subservient role for women, which did not allow women to stand up for what they believe in. As the role of women in literature evolves, so does their views on the workforce environment and their own independence. Throughout the history of the world, British, and American literature, women have evolved to become more independent, self-reliant, and have learned to emphasize their self-worth.
Gilbert, Sarah M. and Gubar, Susan. "From the Infection in the Sentence: The Woman Writer and the Anxiety of Authorship." The Critical Condition: Classic Texts andContemporary Trends. Ed. David H. Richter. Boston: Bedford Books, 1998. 1361-74.
Throughout literature’s history, female authors have been hardly recognized for their groundbreaking and eye-opening accounts of what it means to be a woman of society. In most cases of early literature, women are portrayed as weak and unintelligent characters who rely solely on their male counterparts. Also during this time period, it would be shocking to have women character in some stories, especially since their purpose is only secondary to that of the male protagonist. But, in the late 17th to early 18th century, a crop of courageous women began publishing their works, beginning the literary feminist movement. Together, Aphra Behn, Charlotte Smith, Fanny Burney, and Mary Wollstonecraft challenge the status quo of what it means to be a
Us female literature originated around 1880s. Its primarily concern was to fight for suffrage, female education rights along with advocating abolitionism of slavery, temperance , socialism and reforms in…..