In Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe is heavily influenced and discouraged by cultural expectations relating to her gender. As an aspiring artist, Lily works tirelessly on her painting, but she is constantly criticized by those around her. Charles Tansley explicitly states that only men can excel at art and, because Lily is a woman, she will never be successful. Additionally, Lily is always worried that Mr. Ramsey is dissatisfied with her art. Because of outside influences, Lily’s internal perspective changes, such that she becomes skeptical of her abilities. As she is constantly seen as inferior, she begins to believe that she is truly inferior, bemoaning her art for miniscule blemishes. At the end of the novel, however, Lily is successful, finishing her painting. In spite of the oppressive, androcentric society, Lily is able to paint a picture that captures the whole of human experience. Storyteller, by Leslie Marmon Silko, is a collection of poetry …show more content…
However, Dickinson was born into a wealthy family, and as a result, had more freedom to remain independent from male influences and pursue her desire to write poetry. However, she still experienced societal oppression in response to being a female poet. Because of this, some of Dickinson’s poems relate to feminism and the plight of women. She has become a role model for many feminists in that she infiltrated a male-dominated area of study and pushed the bounds of creativity. A pervasive theme in her work is that of death. Near her birthplace in New England, juvenile death was rampant, meaning that Dickinson was forced to endure the deaths of many of her acquaintances. As a result of these life experiences, the poetic voice she creates is very comfortable with death, seeing it as simply another threshold one must pass through during the course of one’s