Changing Women Through Literature
Changing Women Through Literature
The 20th Century brought about many changes for writers. It was during this time that the war along with the feminist movement began to come forward. These two issues began changing the way women were viewed in society. Writers had the option of whether or not to keep their female characters the domesticated subservient homemaker or to bring forth the new emerging woman in their stories. The roles of women were changing from the passive homemaker who stayed at home and took care of the children to a role that was much more active in society. The same women who played such a passive role throughout their lives were now being brought into society to take over the jobs that were being left vacant due to their men going off to war. One of the greatest modernist writers Virginia Woolf claims, “On or about December 1910, human character changed” (Analyzing Fiction, p 103). Writers such as Woolf had the ability to change the views that society had on woman and the roles they play. Women were changing from the beautiful little housewife to those who had ambitions and dreams of their own not just those that were imposed on them by the men in their life. This change was not only evident in society but also in the literature of the modernist writers, as the characters novelists wrote about had to change simultaneously with the changes that were taking place in society.
Of the novels read throughout the semester James Joyce was the first to bring about the changing attitudes women were forming about what they wanted out of life. Women were looking for more than marriage and domestic duties. In his novel Dubliners there is a short story titled Eveline that portrays a young woman who wants out of the life her mother left to her. Eveline felt trapped in a role that belonged to her mother and the women of that time period’s legacy. A role that was left to her upon her mother’s death, a repetitive role that consisted of taking care of her
The 20th Century brought about many changes for writers. It was during this time that the war along with the feminist movement began to come forward. These two issues began changing the way women were viewed in society. Writers had the option of whether or not to keep their female characters the domesticated subservient homemaker or to bring forth the new emerging woman in their stories. The roles of women were changing from the passive homemaker who stayed at home and took care of the children to a role that was much more active in society. The same women who played such a passive role throughout their lives were now being brought into society to take over the jobs that were being left vacant due to their men going off to war. One of the greatest modernist writers Virginia Woolf claims, “On or about December 1910, human character changed” (Analyzing Fiction, p 103). Writers such as Woolf had the ability to change the views that society had on woman and the roles they play. Women were changing from the beautiful little housewife to those who had ambitions and dreams of their own not just those that were imposed on them by the men in their life. This change was not only evident in society but also in the literature of the modernist writers, as the characters novelists wrote about had to change simultaneously with the changes that were taking place in society.
Of the novels read throughout the semester James Joyce was the first to bring about the changing attitudes women were forming about what they wanted out of life. Women were looking for more than marriage and domestic duties. In his novel Dubliners there is a short story titled Eveline that portrays a young woman who wants out of the life her mother left to her. Eveline felt trapped in a role that belonged to her mother and the women of that time period’s legacy. A role that was left to her upon her mother’s death, a repetitive role that consisted of taking care of her