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Feminist Feminism In Literature

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Feminism’s continual push for equality for men and women has grown and has become more successful. Women have abandoned the traditional roles of submissive housewives that was prevalent in the early 20th century. Early representations of women in literature were often stereotypical and unjust, but the characterization of women in literature has changed now. However, in the early 1900s that type of writing was predominant, in The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Gilman, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor and Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway were writers that disregarded feminist concerns in their stories and demonstrated how feministic views affected society as a whole.
Gilman utilizes feminist criticism within her story …show more content…

“John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage” (Gilman).This quote implies that by being laughed at, the narrator is being brought down by the male figure. Through Johns action readers can infer that he is very prejudiced against women being that he expresses superiority in his marriage. “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction” (Gilman). This reveals that he has complete control over her. Through the use of feminist criticism readers can understand how society viewed women and their beliefs. The Yellow Wallpaper is from a feminist standpoint that is a analysis on the state of women in the late 1800s, and perhaps even of the author’s own struggles with a society run by …show more content…

Through the mere ordering of drinks, Hemingway demonstrates, the gender roles of male dominance and female submissiveness. The first line of conversation is the female asking her boyfriend, “What should we drink?”(Hemingway). The male character orders drinks for the both of them, proving his dominance and the girl asking her boyfriend demonstrates her submission. The controlling manner displayed by the male character through ordering drinks is a stepping-stone into his relentless pushing for his girlfriend to receive the abortion. His oppressive nature is not only reflected at the bar but more importantly he displays a prejudiced attitude in regards to the abortion. Several times the man mentions the simplicity involved in operation to coerce Jig into having such a risky procedure, “It’s really a simple operation, Jig. It’s really not anything. It’s just to let the air in”

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In the nineteenth century, woman had no power over men in society. They were limited in their freedom, as their lives were controlled by their husbands. Some women did not mind this lifestyle, and remained obedient, while some rebelled and demanded their rights. “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, are short stories that exposes the lifestyle women lived in the nineteenth century. The protagonists from both stories, Jane and Georgiana, similarly lived a male dominated lifestyle.

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1006 Words | 5 Pages

Authors, especially female authors, have long used their writing to emphasize and analyze the feminist issues that characterize society, both in the past and the present. Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Susan Glaspell wrote narratives that best examined feminist movements through the unreliable minds of their characters. In all three stories, “The Story of an Hour”, “The Yellow Wallpaper”, and “A Jury of Her Peers”, the authors use characterization, symbolism, and foreshadowing to describe the characters’ apparent psychosis or unreasonable behavior to shed light on the social issues that characterized the late 19th century and early 20th century. Penning many stories that demonstrate her opinions on the social issues of the era,

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544 Words | 3 Pages

Passage Analysis #1 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” Gilman, in this particular passage of “The Yellow Wallpaper,” explores the theme of female oppression through imagery and symbolism of the wall-paper. These elements of literature make the wall-paper come to life for both the narrator and the audience. “The front pattern does move”(55) personifies the wall-paper to be so animate and physically restraining that the woman behind it must shake it to attempt to escape. The italicization of “does” serves to further affirm that the wallpaper exhibits restrictive human-like behaviors - particularly those of dominant men in society. The narrator states that there are “a great many woman behind”(55), extending the metaphor to all Victorian women in the United States and others around the world who are oppressed.

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1122 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the generation, women have always been trapped in some way or another. In the short story, ‘The Yellow Wall-Paper’ and the novel ‘The Awakening’ highlights the struggle of women in the late 1800’s and the early 1900s in society. The Yellow wallpaper is a short story about women giving birth and being imprisoned in a room with a weird view of the yellow wall-paper. This resulted in her hallucination lead to the development of mental illness. By the end of the story, she rips off the yellow wallpaper and kills her husband.

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949 Words | 4 Pages

In his essay Literacy and Cultural Theory, Donald Hall talks about the essence of feminist oppression. Hall explains, “ While all feminist methodologies focus intensely on gender … and explore the complex ways in which women have been denied social power and the right to various forms of self expression”(Hall 199). This occuring theme is seen in the stories, The Awakening and Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin and Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. All of these stories illustrate the consequences due to the limitation that are put on women by the expectations of society. He also mentions, “ Feminists speak of women being regulated to the status of objects pointing out that the have traditionally been valued for their beauty…”

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537 Words | 3 Pages

Feminist literature is a form of writing that addresses relevant political issues, and past attitudes toward women. “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Elizabeth Stanton expresses strong traits of feminist literature along with “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin. These three stories all do an outstanding job of defending the female gender, while also expressing the inequalities they’ve faced throughout time. The “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” written by Elizabeth Stanton was a controversial document that called for women's suffrage and equality under the law.

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1480 Words | 6 Pages

Charlotte Gilman’s short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, (1899) is a text that describes how suppression of women and their confinement in domestic sphere leads to descend into insanity for escape. The story is written as diary entries of the protagonist, who is living with her husband in an old mansion for the summer. The protagonist, who remains unnamed, is suffering from post-partum depression after the birth of her child and is on ‘rest’ cure by her physician husband. In this paper, I will try to prove that ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ acts as a subversive text by portraying the protagonist’s “descent into madness” as a result of the suppression that women faced in Victorian period.

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1295 Words | 6 Pages

Women in the 1800’ and early 1900’s were treated the same as slaves, second class citizens who had no voice or decision over their lives. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1892 with a late American 19th century setting. The main character, a nameless woman, fights depression and anxiety along with being oppressed by her husband John and wanting to rise against the norms of

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3751 Words | 16 Pages

Was one of the most preeminent writers in history prejudiced against women? It is formidably supported that John Steinbeck had strong prejudiced opinions about women as evidenced by his writings. Considering the vast number of available works, only a small selection of Steinbeck’s most popular literature is needed to investigate the slighted nature of his female characters: the women of The Grapes of Wrath, Eliza from “The Chrysanthemums,” and Curly’s wife in Of Mice and Men.

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3751 Words | 16 Pages

Was one of the most preeminent writers in history prejudiced against women? It is formidably supported that John Steinbeck had strong prejudiced opinions about women as evidenced by his writings. Considering the vast number of available works, only a small selection of Steinbeck’s most popular literature is needed to investigate the slighted nature of his female characters: the women of The Grapes of Wrath, Eliza from “The Chrysanthemums,” and Curly’s wife in Of Mice and Men. Steinbeck repeatedly generates a society that does not provide a place for women with ambition or intelligence, despite any effort to try and insert themselves into society.

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774 Words | 4 Pages

Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” critiques Victorian womanhood in several ways throughout the text. Victorian women were expected to be pure, dainty, and perfectly angelic. They were also expected to be perfect mothers, wives, and hostesses at all times. If a woman were to express too much emotion, she would be called hysterical. Hysteria was considered a medical condition which rendered a woman incapable of reason or generally thinking like an adult.

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495 Words | 2 Pages

Author Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “Yellow Wall-Paper,” expresses her ideas by fighting women’s oppression through free expression and symbolic writing. She refers to a woman she sees behind the wallpaper in the following lines “and it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that paper.” This so called “Yellow Wall-Paper” is symbolic of a restraint for women back in the 1900s. Gilman wrote “I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.”

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1091 Words | 5 Pages

The story that I had presented for my oral presentation in Task 1 is ‘Boys and Girls’ is a by Alice Munro. This simple short story is about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes but have to accept the gender stereotyping in the end of the story. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario. The relevant theories of literary criticisms that can be applied to the ‘Boys and Girls’ short story are historical criticism and mostly feminism criticism. The justification of choosing historical criticism to critique this short story is because this story is based on the setting of Boys and Girls which is at a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada and the

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1096 Words | 5 Pages

“Women are the only oppressed group in our society that lives in intimate association with their oppressors,” -Evelyn Cunningham. During the early 20th century, society’s expectations of women were tremendously different than how they are currently in the 21st century. Women were expected to be submissive to the men around them and had to listen, obey, and serve them. Prominent examples were represented in Ernest Hemingway’s stories, “Cat in the Rain” and “Hills like White Elephants.” Both of the well-known short stories were written in the 1920s and depict the mistreatment of women.

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791 Words | 4 Pages

Rebecca West once said, “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat”; feminism and other social issues are fundamental to literature, with them commonly being a driving force behind both modern and classic works of fiction. Feminism is everywhere, with women still fighting for gender equality in modern day Britain as demonstrated through Emma Watson’s United Nations speech which was broadcasted in September of 2014 where she differentiates feminism from ‘man-hating’. Feminism has developed considerably over time as general attitudes have been swayed through literature, political movements and women’s portrayal of themselves. In 1847, Charlotte Bronte released her novel ‘Jane Eyre’ which was viewed as very radical for its time as Bronte uses Jane to exhibit her resentment towards society. Jane is presented as a morally strong, determined character who, when she falls in love, embraces the notion instead of the label and profits which are associated with it; she states that she “cares for [her]self” and that “more unsustained [she is], the more [she] will respect [her]self” as she is not tempted away from her self-respect.

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