The Yankee Girl Analysis

THE YANKEE GIRL

1. Analyze the authors views of women 's roles and woman 's nature

The short story “the Yankee Girl” by Catherine Beecher is an anthology written in the 19th century and is a reflection of the values of her times. She herself became financially independent by becoming a successful writer and gave some of the best literary works in American history. She was herself very enthusiastic about the favoring the women’s rights and was pro-feminism. She extensively wrote against the evils of slavery but all her works had an element of the women. She was of the view that women must be given equal status as men. She herself was brought up in an atmosphere that encouraged equity between the genders and even after her marriage she was encouraged

In the analysis include at least TWO woman reformers whose views you think might most agree with the views of the author you are analyzing and show why?

Judith Sargent Murray: She was a essayist, playwright, poet and letter writer in the late 18th and early 19th century America. She was one of the earliest proponents of the idea of equality among men and women. She was of the view that women in no way inferior to men in intellectual capacities and should be given equal opportunity to achieve economic independence. She even adopted a masculine pen name so that her readers would not dismiss her views just because she was a woman.

On the issue of the intellectual capabilities of women her views would have most in agreement with those of Beecher. As she fairly indicated in her landmark essay “the equality of the sexes” than men were in no way were superior to women and had no superior right to be able to subordinate the latter sex. Beecher too respected the rights of women as has been indicted in her story, “the yankee girl” when she rejects the offer of the rich aristocrat. The protagonist, Mary, made a conscious choice to reject the marriage proposal because she wanted to give her heart to someone who would rather appreciate her emotions rather makes her a mere ornamental appendage to their list of achievements and bears them as a

She realized that the role assigned to women would undergo a transformation with the changes in the society. She was interested in exploring the sociality of women rather than sexuality or the emotional aspects of her which were already widely accepted. The 19th century can be defined as being sexually segregated where the role of men and women were sharply differentiated. It was ‘unmanly’ for a man to enter the kitchen but it was an accepted norm for the men to indulge in everything from gambling to alcoholism. In fact, it was one of the most prominent points in focus for all the feminist movement of the 19th century which saw it as largely a men’s problem. But in the 19th century the winds were already changing direction. With America laying the foundations of one of the oldest and strongest democracies of modern humanity the women were being largely seen as equal counterparts to men especially with the women suffrage movements fighting to give equal voting rights to women. The norms and expectations of the “ideal” woman were changing from the one working within the four walls of the house and being submissive to their male counterparts to someone demanding their rights as a human being. According to Smith-Rosenberg the hostility and criticism among the women were so rare so as to seem to be tabooed but there weren’t any tabooes against