Essays on Feminism In Literature

“The Yellow Wallpaper” is a feminist short story by Charlotte Perkins- Gilman. The meaning of the story is beyond belief as it see the sights into the basic issues of a woman's place in society, and women's rights in the 19th century. Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's theme behind the short story was an awareness approach and a feminist approach. The main character in the story struggles against the masculine ways of thinking and society norms or standards. She also struggles with mental…...

My Ántonia was written by Willa Cather in 1918, and is centered around a Bohemian immigrant girl named Ántonia Shirmerda. The story takes place after a time of transformation in the United States, specifically the American West. The story is told from Jim Burden’s point of view, a recently orphaned boy going to live with his grandparents. Jim and Ántonia first meet each other as young children when they are both traveling by train to Nebraska, which they will soon…...

Equality: having the same, balanced status of rights, opportunities, and responsibilities regardless of skin color, gender, social class, or religious belief. This is the concept that drives the University of Louisville’s production entitled, The Taming of the Shrew. The director of this production, J. Ariadne Calvano and dramaturg Janna Segal emphasizes the conceptual recognition of feminism. Feminism is the belief that women should have economic political and social equality with men. This term also refers to a political movement that…...

It is no secret that women have always been looked down upon in society throughout the years, it has been going on for many decades now and is not a shock to anyone. There are even stories written in old literature portraying just how strong the use of feminism and gender roles are, two very important critical lenses, by showing the women's roles, personalities and fate in the tales being told. Many people actually think that feminism doesn't exist,and women…...

Kindred, by Octavia Butler, explores slavery through a time-traveling experience. The main character, Dana, is thrown into the antebellum south during the height of slavery. Dana is a modern-day African American woman living in Los Angeles. While celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her husband, Kevin, Dana is abruptly forced to time travel from the year 1976 to a Maryland plantation from 1815. After repeated time travel, it becomes evident that Dana’s time travels are related to her ancestor, Rufus Weylin,…...

As shown in the essay, these two female characters, Jane Eyre and Maggie Tulliver are quite ahead of their time and represent unique figures of female heroines during the Victorian era. They rejected Victorian standards for women, Jane and Maggie’s main purpose in life was not to become wives and mothers, allowing men to control all their properties and incomes if they worked, they wanted to be self-sufficient, independent and equal to men as they are not weak nor helpless.…...

Even though female protagonists are nowadays common in literature, not enough books are presented to show that they can handle the outside world of adventurism and instead are “required” to stay at home because of their promiscuity of being the gender that is based on staying home. Well there is a fault towards making this the only “occupation” that can fit the female protagonist. It would make the protagonist ignorant and angry because they would want a respectful position in…...

Both Jane Eyre and Maggie Tulliver can be considered one of the first (if not the very first) feminist heroines in Victorian literature, in a society in which men were seen as the main jobholders in every family whereas women were relegated to work as housewives, whose main goals in life were to get married and become mothers, being dispossessed of ownership and other legal rights. Although it is true that both heroines approach their problems in a quite different…...

A comparison between similar short stories in two literary works is the significance behind the feminine struggles. Females have faced multiple challenges throughout history. In Tillie Olsen’s work “I stand Here Ironing,” and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s work “The Yellow Wallpaper,” both stories are effective in their description of the women’s struggle with gender roles in their motherhood. The possible meaning of both works can be examined by applying the reader’s opinion and views. Even though the narrators in the stories…...

Literature throughout the middle ages was often extremely antifeminist, in large part due to the patriarchal nature of society and the lack of female writers. Women were portrayed as vile temptresses, whose very existence revolved around causing man misery. This style of writing is strongly evidenced in The Canterbury Tales and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight where Geoffrey Chaucer and the Pearl Poet create characters to strongly reinforce the sentiment. These writers used historical and mythological examples, as well…...