Women’s Voice in Literature free essay sample

Voice in Literature In the late 1800s and early 1900s, women’s roles evolved from mere housewives to passionate activists who were fighting for rights to their share of the American dream. The main goal of the women participating in the fight was the right vote. In an effort to rally more to their cause, women used not only organized protests but employed literature to speak out. Written during this time period, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† and â€Å"Trifles† are works that portray women as passive timid beings that should listen to their counterparts. These two pieces were composed to expose the outrageous manner in which women were regarded. On the other hand, â€Å"Canceled† is a contemporary piece which depicts the female character as a strong independent individual with her own ideas. Today, women have fought and prevailed to secure rights that rival those of men. Although women have not achieved fully equal rights as men, â€Å"Canceled† illustrates the modern social acceptance of a woman dominated relationship. All three pieces are portrayals of women’s identities and social expectations of the time period in which they were written and each reveals how women today have progressed to establish a more equal role between men and women over the last century. In all three pieces, regardless of the time period, the female characters are presented as being trapped in their relationship. The narrator in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† is forced to comply with her husband’s wishes to how she should confront her ailment. As her husband and a physician of high standing, John uses his status to manipulate the narrator into acquiescing to his demands. The narrator is â€Å"absolutely forbidden to ‘work’,† (Gilman 317) as John alleges is the remedy for her sickness. She is even banished into a room with barred windows and told to rest. The female character in â€Å"Trifles,† Mrs. Wright, is forced to endure a cold relationship with her husband with no warmth of love. As Mrs. Hale puts it â€Å"it never seemed a very cheerful place† (Glaspell 773), in reference to the house in which the relationship resided. Another indication of the lack of passion in the marriage is the jars of fruit in the kitchen that have been destroyed by the cold weather. Mrs. Wright put so much time and effort into these fruits, as suggested by her worry for them, and the cold had ruined them just as the coldness of her relationship had ruined her. In â€Å"Canceled,† the female character, Adie, is limited by an unintended pregnancy which her boyfriend requests she keep. With the pressures of raising a child, she would be unable to achieve goals that she may have had in life such as receiving a higher education and achieving a career of her own. As depicted by these three stories, women throughout time have been trapped under a man’s authority. Although all three characters are trapped by different combination of circumstances, the older pieces compared with more contemporary piece display different options that were available to each woman, therefore illustrating the evolution of women’s rights over the past century. In both â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† and in â€Å"Trifles,† the female characters were not given alternatives other than to abide by regulations enacted by the men. The narrator from â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† yielded to her husband’s orders to a passive lifestyle. She is depicted as having no choice but to concede to the male figure as did many women of the story’s time period. In the end, the narrator is pushed into a corner causing her mind to succumb to insanity as she had no options to deal with her ailments. Mrs. Wright from â€Å"Trifles,† experienced the same results. She fell into a manic state after enduring a passionless marriage with an emotionally abusive husband. In the time period in which â€Å"Trifles† was written, a woman did not have many options to escape an abusive marriage. As depicted by Mrs. Wright, one of the few ways to be free from a lifeless relationship was to take her husband’s life. On the other hand, â€Å"Canceled† portrayed Adie as having outs to her cage rather than being forced into a corner as the other two women. She chooses to have an abortion rather than be hampered by a teenage pregnancy. With options, Adie was able to make decisions that fit her goals in life. â€Å"Canceled† is a testament to the choices that women have today. A woman can make life altering decisions that she feels may be the best for her. The major difference between the stories of different time periods is the opportunities that have become available to women overtime. In all three pieces, the female characters are confronted with the conflict of losing their individual identity under the strains of their relationships. In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† the narrator is restricted by her husband, John, who has not allowed her to express herself through writing. MacPike claims, â€Å"The narrators work threatens to destroy her status as a mere child by gaining her recognition in the adult world; this is reason enough for her husband to forbid her to work. Her work is, as he suggests, dangerous; but its danger is for him, not her, because it removes her from his control†. Without a creative outlet, the narrator loses her ability to distinguish herself from her marriage. She is forced to rely on her husband to define her and submit to his authority. The same is true in reference to Mrs. Wright in â€Å"Trifles,† who is prohibited from singing by her husband. When Mrs. Wright was younger, she was one of the town girls who sang in a choir. Through music, she was able to creatively express herself and have a separate identity from her marriage. By attempting to control their wives’ outlet for self-expression, the husbands in these two stories stifle the woman’s ability to think for herself and establish a sense of individual identity. The lack of self expression causes a woman to become dominated by the male figure in her life as she cannot think for herself. In the story, â€Å"Canceled,† Adie loses her identity when her boyfriend, Samuel, tries to force her to go through with the pregnancy. Expressing her thoughts, Adie states, â€Å"It’s just that I don’t want this †¦ I want to be me, just me† (Treglia). She felt that this foreign being in her is causing her to lose her sense of individuality. As a teenager, Adie has yet to explore her independence and develop an identity for herself. By having a child, she would never have the opportunity to create an identity. Through the forceful will of a man, history has shown that women have many obstacles in their efforts to establish an identity of their own. The contrast between the earlier written pieces and the modern piece is the social acceptance of the idea a woman can create her own identity. The protagonist in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† does not agree with her husband’s verdict of a work-free lifestyle. She rebels passively by writing in private when her husband is away. In the period associated with this piece, â€Å"a woman would probably have repressed her anger instead of showing it. If she had showed it, she might have been thought insane and institutionalized †¦ the ideal female would become the peaceful good girl, who does not cause trouble, does not want attention or help, but is content to wreak havoc in her own way† (Wagner-Martin). The narrator is portrayed to fit the mold of the expectations of a woman in the late 19th century. She is never openly aggressive and submits to her husband’s demands as evident by her wiliness to stay confined in the nursery. As stated, she had the keys to leave but by her own choice she decides to remain in order to please her husband. In â€Å"Trifles,† Mrs. Wright defies her husband by obtaining a singing canary. Instead of directly opposing her husband and continuing her passion for singing, Mrs. Wright maneuvers around his rules and replaces her singing with a songbird. This is another example of how a woman of the late 19th century and early 20th century is expected to react to a man’s demands, passively. By surrendering to the men’s orders, the women of this time period lose their identity. The difference in the expectations of a woman forging an identity is illustrated in â€Å"Canceled†, the more modern piece. Adie openly disregards Samuel’s wishes for her to keep the unborn child. She decides that she needs to get an abortion because the pregnancy would hinder her growth as an individual. The option to have an abortion in â€Å"Canceled† demonstrates how women have procured the right express themselves as they wish. This story depicts how society has evolved to allow a woman to create an identity fit for herself. Another major difference between the two earlier written pieces and the more contemporary piece is the depiction of the female characters in the older stories as being married while the newer story shows a girl who is not. In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† and in â€Å"Trifles†, the women are all portrayed as being married, which indicates how women, of that time period, depend on the men. A woman was considered the property of her husband during the late 19th century and was regarded as a child in need of a husband to look after. The nursery, in which the protagonist in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† resides in, furthers the claim of how a woman is compared to a child. Even the names, such as â€Å"little girl† and â€Å"blessed little goose†, that her husband uses to call the narrator resembles those used to refer to a child. However, in â€Å"Canceled,† Adie is not married and in the end actually leaves Samuel, which suggests modern-day women of not needing the security of a marriage and how it is more socially acceptable to be a single woman. An unmarried woman today has opportunities that were not available to women in earlier times to secure the means to support herself. Illustrated by Adie, a woman today can be independent and does not need a man to provide for her and her child. Today, a man is not even needed to conceive a child as with the advances in science has allowed a woman to become artificially inseminated. The progression of women’s rights is evident in the differences between the female characters of the three different time pieces. Although separated by almost a century, â€Å"Trifles† and â€Å"Canceled† share similar ideas of how women have become united which differs from the oldest piece, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper. † In â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† the two female characters, the narrator and her sister-in-law, are pitted against each other. The sister-in-law is used by John as an extension of his authority over the narrator while he is away. She keeps a watchful eye on the narrator to control her creative expression. This dissonance between the two female characters relay the mindset of the women of that time period. Women in the late 19th century have yet to unify to fight for their rights and the depiction of woman in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† reveals this. On the other hand, in â€Å"Trifles† and â€Å"Canceled† the female characters are shown to be unified. In the last line in â€Å"Trifles,† â€Å"we call it—knot it, Mr. Henderson,† Leonard Mustazza claims, that â€Å"most critics have read this line as an ironic reference to the womens solidarity at this point. † During the early 1900s, women gathered together to fight for their rights â€Å"to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities. Perhaps most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society† (Woman’s History in America). â€Å"Canceled† also exhibits this unity by portraying the support of Adie’s mother, Bev, on Adie’s decision to have an abortion. When Samuel continuously pesters Adie, Bev steps in and tells Samuel, â€Å"[my] daughter needs time to think things through† (Treglia). With this showing of support, â€Å"Cancel† reveals how women have come together to defend each other against the authority of men. The progression of women’s unity is shown through the female characters in the three time pieces. As a reader of these three pieces, one can follow the advancement of women’s right throughout the past century. The oldest piece, â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† â€Å"is used to remind contemporary readers of the enduring import of the feminist struggle against patriarchal domination† (Haney-Peritz). This story shows how little control a woman has on her own life and how social expectations cause her to conform to a man’s wishes regardless of her wn thoughts. â€Å"Trifles,† being written a decade after â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† already exhibits the headway of woman over that past decade. The women in that piece are shown to be in unity when it comes to the defense of a fellow female. It also depicts how women are ready for a change as shown with the pent up release of rage by the murder committed by Mrs. Wright. Outraged over the treatme nt of women during the early 1900s, women all around the world united to speak out and fight for their rights. The piece â€Å"Canceled,† written almost a full century after the two fore-mentioned pieces clearly depicts the headway of the feminist movement over the last century. Women today have many more options and the right to make their own decisions as to how these decisions affect their lives and their roles. Without pieces like these three that are indications of the outrageous treatment of women during those time periods, there would not have been a medium for women to speak out and procure the rights that they have today. ? Works Cited Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper. Literature Reading and Writing with Critical Strategies. Ed. Joe Terry New York: Pearson Education Inc, 2004. 316-327. Print. Glaspell, Susan. â€Å"Trifles. † Literature Reading and Writing with Critical Strategies. Ed. Joe Terry New York: Pearson Education Inc, 2004. 770-780. Print. Haney-Peritz, Janice. Monumental Feminism and Literatures Ancestral House: Another Look at The Yello w Wallpaper. . Charlotte Perkins Gilman: The Woman and Her Work. Ed. Sheryl L. Meyering. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1989. 95-107. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Janet Witalec. Vol. 62. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 May 2010. MacPike, Loralee. Environment as Psychopathological Symbolism in The Yellow Wallpaper. . American Literary Realism 1870-1910 8. 3 (Summer 1975): 286-288. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 201. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 May 2010 Mustazza, Leonard. Generic Translation and Thematic Shift in Susan Glaspells Trifles and A Jury of Her Peers. Studies in Short Fiction 26. 4 (Fall 1989): 489-496. Rpt. in Short Story Criticism. Ed. Jenny Cromie. Vol. 41. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 May 2010. Sutton, Brian. A different kind of the same thing: Marie de Frances Laustic and Glaspells Trifles. The Explicator 66. 3 (2008): 170+. General OneFile. Web. 22 May 2010. Treglia, Jessica. â€Å"Canceled. † Boston Review. Aug 2009. Print. Wagner-Martin, Linda. Gilmans The Yellow Wallpaper: A Centenary. EXPLORING Short Stories. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Web. 22 May 2010. Women’s History in America. Women’s International Center, 2010. Web. 22 May 2010.