Patterns In Ann Jane Thornton's Literature

Presenting literature to the public that is meant to be a commentary on social or political issues, masked under the guise of entertaining and fictional, is a tool implemented by authors and activists for centuries. While not all satire is as overt as Jonathan Swift’s suggestion that we eat the babies, it does not diminish the eyebrow raising suggestions that are conveyed once the meaning has been discovered. In Aphra Behn’s The History of the Nun and Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, the established expectations of the female role within society are brought into question then directly rejected. These expectations establish that women should be deferential to men, morally unblemished, and virtuous at all times. Men, however, are not held to these expectations in the same way. The masculine roles assumed by Isabella and Fantomina demonstrate a private rebellion against the established patriarchal society as it warns against the under-estimation of women and proves that women exist independently.

The title character of Catharine Maria Sedgewick’s novel, Hope Leslie, defies the standards to which women of the era were to adhere. Sedgewick’s novel is set in New England during the 17th century after the Puritans had broken away from the Church of England. Hope Leslie lives in a repressive Puritan society in which women behave passively, submit to the males around them, and live by the Bible. They allow the men of their family to make decisions for them and rarely, if ever, convey an opinion that differs from the status quo. However, Hope Leslie does not conform to the expected behavior of women during that time, behavior that only further expressed the supposed superiority of males. Hope

In this study, we used one adult male Sprague-Dawley rat weighing 283 g. The subject was on a 6 am turn on, 6 pm turn off light cycle and was fed and given water regularly. The subject had also already gone through a rotometer test to find the subject’s preferred rotational direction.

Perusing once more from nineteenth century working class sexual orientation parts, which consigned ladies solidly to the private universe of the home, students of history saw the white frontier lady's cooperation in a preindustrial family unit economy as empowering. A comparative propensity to romanticize the hard existence of Native American ladies differentiated their opportunity and impact with the patriarchal structure within which European ladies lived. Despite the fact that comparisons are perhaps unavoidable, they can cloud the complexities of ladies' lives both the assorted qualities that described them and the purposes of shared belief they shared. Such examinations likewise divert consideration from the historical changes that shaped these ladies' lives: the triumph of Native American, the importation and oppression of Africans, the monstrous relocation of European, and the financial and political developing of the British settlements. This period secured by the following section, the progressive time of 1750-1800, was likewise thick with changes that capably influenced the lives of

In the 21st century, many women, myself included, take for granted that we can wear whatever we desire and say what we want, in public, without the fear of being thrown in jail. However, that was not always the case. While the fight for the continued advance of women’s rights rages on, women of the 19th century lived a very different life than the one, us women, lead today. The feminist agenda was just emerging on the horizon. One particular woman was preparing to do her part to further the cause of women’s rights: Sarah Willis Parker. Parker was better known by her pen name, Fanny Fern. After facing and overcoming extreme adversity, she made the decision to start writing. To understand how truly ground breaking Fanny Fern was, we need to understand that in a 1997 edition of an anthology of American satire from colonial times to present, Fern was the only woman writer from the 19th century in that text. Her satiric style and controversial subject matter was just what the oppressed needed to gain some support and give them a voice.

In her 1945 article, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller illustrates a world in which “there exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves”, and where men hold “the belief that Woman was made for Man”. Two books, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, provide male and female perspective in the 19th century. These separate texts exemplify two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, Woman in the Nineteenth Century provides perspective of the feminine experience in a male dominated world while Moby Dick portrays a society from a male point of view and experiences woman as subservient to himself.

In antebellum America there was little tolerance for autonomous women. Usually females, spanning all classes, were attached to households, dependent on males for status and wealth. Society demanded that domesticity be the woman’s domain, any deviations from this constricting edict was met with disdain. The cultural myth of the model genteel women permeated the fabric of 19th century life. However, with the advent of the Civil

For centuries, women’s position in society has been in a state of flux as they fought for their rights. Likewise, fashions around the world have also been in a constant state of change. In America in particular, the clothing styles of women have changed at a rapid pace, from colonial-era aprons and bonnets to bustles, little black dresses, and bell bottoms. As the roles of females in the United States shifted from the mid-1600s to late 1900s, so too did the fashions, evolving to meet American women’s ever-changing needs.

During the early 1900’s to the Roaring Twenties, the transition from true woman to new woman was made once women, in general, finally realized that they no longer had to be the property of their husbands and go out and make a life for themselves! It started with the beginning of the Flapper. The first rebellious women of the 1920's to glamorize their wealth, their attractiveness, and the ability to make money. A Flapper is a woman who was "known for their unconventional style and behavior." This paper will explore the transition of true woman to new woman through the eyes of a Roaring Twenties Flapper.

Another area in which women made changes was with their appearance. Women used their attire and style to show an independence, a certain freedom in which they alone had control. Starting with the “Gibson Girl”, women dressed in long, slim dresses, freeing themselves of the poufy petticoats of yore. Women started wearing shorter dresses and shorter hairstyles, leading to “Flapper Jane”. “Women started wearing “less” clothing, shorter dresses, cutting off their hair, and just being more “sensual” than normal”, (Bliven, 1925).

“In any era, fashion is a reflection of the time and what is going on in the culture politically, socially and economically.”1 The 1920’s witnessed a variety of dramatic changes for women; these changes, such as shorter dresses and stronger attitudes occurred primarily after World War I in spite of the prolonged development of women 's’ rights through 1914 and 1920. With their new hair, fashion styles, and attitudes, women had started what became known as the “Flapper Era”.

Feminist ideas are used throughout this story in both explicit and implicit ways to help describe the gender roles placed upon females in the 1950s. “That figure was a garish blond showgirl, a Hollywood ‘sexpot’ of no interest to intellectuals”. (Page 79) The author explicitly includes the

In this essay I will be comparing Oscar Wilde's play 'A Woman of No Importance' to John Fowles' novel 'The French Lieutenant's Woman'. I will be exploring their differing views of woman in Victorian society. Generally, woman were viewed as inferior to men, yet Wilde shows compassion for them in his writing, this can be seen through his kindness to Mrs Arbuthnot towards the end of the play. However, John Fowles, although much darker in his presentation of woman, portrays Sarah Woodruff as

John Collier’s ‘The Chaser’, a short story that follows Alan Austen, a character who shows typically feminine or androgynous traits, displaying Alan being timid, easily manipulated, cowardly, and inevitably, the harbinger of his own destruction. ‘The Chaser’ features Alan seeking out an old man for a love potion to make Diana fall in love with him. From a sophisticated gender perspective, ‘the Chaser’ is shown to be patriarchal to start, with androgynous areas that end with the story being heavily androgynous. Based on text in the story and underlying themes, ‘The Chaser’ is Feminine and Androgynous, and Austen displays Feminine androgynous traits heavily by the end of the story.

An example of this notion is shown in Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord, reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal her reason why: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of...pleased dependence, which is natural... and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority” (219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents an internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a book defies the cult of true womanhood. Thus, defying the qualities rooted in the cult of true womanhood causes high risk of