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Limitations for Women in Wuthering Heights and Mrs. Warren's Profession

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Limitations for Women in Wuthering Heights and Mrs. Warren's Profession
The limitations for Women “Mrs. Warren’s Profession”, written in 1893 by George Bernard Shaw, is a play that centers around the relationship between Mrs. Kitty Warren, a brothel owner, and her daughter, Vivie, an intelligent and hardheaded young woman. The women in this play are underpaid, undervalued, and overworked. A good comparison that explores women in the Victorian era is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, written in 1846. Wuthering Heights goes in depth about the social classes that were formed back in Victorian times. During this time Women faced political and educational restrictions that triggered a fight for reform concerning their place within society. In both pieces of writing it becomes apparent that women face oppression in the public sphere and also restriction in political and educational sphere, which prohibits women from having equal opportunity and access compared to men; this further oppresses women within the male dominating society. Therefore, women become reliant on men financially. Nonetheless, in the piece written by Shaw, Vivie (Mr.s Warren’s daughter) challenges the male dominating society and pursues an education in order to successfully liberate herself from the oppressive society and Mrs. Warren actively participates in immoral activities by selling herself to the wealthy men of the town, which in turn ruins her relationship with her daughter.

In Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Kitty Warren is forced to engage in a lifestyle that she cannot find a way out of. Kitty views prostitution as a solution to escape poverty, starvation, and slavery. She believes that her profession is a good decision based on the various intersections of her identity, which places her to experience continuous oppression within society. Hence, she finds prostitution to be getaway from the cruel, unfair and unequal society. As she asserts to her daughter Vivie, “where can a woman get the money to save in any other business?...Do you think we [are]


Cited: Page Brontë, Emily, and Pauline Nestor. Wuthering Heights. London: Penguin, 2003. Print. Giele, Janet Zollinger. “Women’s movement.” World Book Advanced. World Book, 2012. Web. 30 Jan. 2012. Shaw, Bernard, and L. W. Conolly. Mrs. Warren 's Profession. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2005. Print.
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