Feminism 19th and Early 20th Century America Essay

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Feminism 19th and Early 20th Century America

Writing and women's roles were unavoidably mixed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was a time in which many women protested their restrictions through novels, poetry, pamphlets, and speeches. By analyzing those creations, readings can begin to understand the lives of those forward-looking women. In their own time, people dismissed them as inconsequential complainers. Minority authors, like blacks and lesbians were even more ignored. However, by learning about their work, we can learn about the daily life of the social classes to which they belonged.

Many people feel that our socioeconomic status limits our understanding of others (McClish and Bacon). Because our understanding is limited by our own viewpoint from our socioeconomic status, patriarchal societies tend to limit self-expression to that which is compatible with the patriarchy. As a result, it's important to remember to ask questions based one's own experience, instead of the patriarchy (McClish and Bacon, 28). For example, minorities tend to be good at this because if they don't conform to the mainstream society, they won't last very long (McClish and Bacon, 28). This makes them less of a subjective observer.

When reading works by women in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it's important to consider that the common reader of the time was the upper-class white male, since they had all the money (McClish and Bacon, 32). At that time, the short story and novel were often used by women writers because instead of belaboring their points, the writers could sneak in their perspective. Good art allows the viewer (or reader, in this class) to understand someone else's outlook (McClish and Bacon, 34).

Along those lines, Ross says that increasingly refined readers revered the upper-class white male's view, which in turn made those upper-class white men all the more powerful, as least in writing (Ross). Ross summarizes Baron in pointing out that because of that same power, published writing turned towards gender bias in reaction to those new feminist writers (Ross).

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Ross gives an example of British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, who wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects. In her work, she would not submit to the Victorian ideal of a woman, and became a public advocate for prohibition of alcohol, the abolition of slavery, the rights of manual workers, and suffragists.

One author that is commonly known for rejecting the Victorian feminist ideal was Kate Chopin, author of The Story of an Hour. Chopin smoked, walked alone (which women of that time simply did not do), and was a zealous intellectual. Despite this, she was a married mother of six children, who only took up writing after her husband died. Her first novel wasn't published until she was 40. The Story of an Hour was published five years later, in 1894. At the time, her readers assumed that the characters in her novels were simply fantastical, instead of embodying Chopin's political and social viewpoints. Now, of course, readers understand that Chopin's writing was very progressive for its era.

In the short story The Story of an Hour, the heroine, Louise, learns that her husband died in a train wreck. She worries her sister when she starts sobbing, because she has heart trouble. Unbeknownst to her sister who told her the news, Louise is happy that she is free of marriage. Louise knows that she could not tell her sister about being happy, because her sister would not understand her feelings -- women are supposed to be happy when they're married. However, Louise was happily married to Brently.

Instead, Chopin proposes that all marriage is oppressive, no matter how happy the participants are. Louise spends the hour looking out the window and thinking about all the happy times she has to look forward to, instead of crying….....

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