Preview

Mrs. Beazley's Deeds

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1400 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Mrs. Beazley's Deeds
Anne Milano
EH 200
Professor Crowley
September 30, 2010
Precis of Gilman, Charlotte, Perkins “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds.” In Barbara Solomon’s The Haves And Have-Nots (386-400). New York: New York / New American Library.
SITUATION:
The story “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds” is about how women were valued in the nineteenth century society. The author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, moved to California at the age of thirty after divorcing her husband. “She lectured on women’s status and socialism, taught school, operated a boarding house, edited newspapers, and wrote articles and novels. Her articles on feminist issues are Women and Economics (1898), Concerning Children (1900), Human Work (1904), The Man-Made World (1911). Gilman’s novels are The Crux (1911), Herland (1915), Moving the Mountain (1911), and With Her in Our Land (1916)” (386). The latter three are feminist works. The author has an autobiography that was published in 1935, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She was terminally ill with cancer and chose to end her own life in 1935.
The treatment of women was extremely negative; most were expected to stay home to fulfill domestic responsibilities. Mrs. Beazley’s issue involved her husband selling land and property that was willed to her by her father. She signs the legal documents due to feelings of force from her husband. At one point Mrs. Beazley says to her husband after he exclaims, “You’ve signed the deeds,” she replies, “Yes, I know I have- you made me” (389). Mr. Beazley brings home a tenant to keep his spouse occupied and distracted from his escapades only to have the woman legally advise her of her rights. The author wrote “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds” to shed light on how women were treated in the nineteenth century society and how they are still treated to this day in time. Gilman writes this story to appeal to American men and women and make them aware of how men and women are equals.
ISSUES:
Many problems and questions arise from the main issue in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the article Catharine Beecher and Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Architects of female power, Valerie Gill compares the beliefs of both Charlotte Gilman and her great-aunt Catharine Beecher. One of, if not the most important, factor of this article that the reader sees repeatedly is the environment in which the american woman tenants should be the center of all their commerce. This process continued to establish the idea that what initiates in the woman's home will continue to emit throughout the lives of the woman and her family. Both Beecher and Gilman attempted to define the roles of american women beginning with their private life and continuing on into their public life. Although both Catharine Beecher and Charlotte Gilman had “disparate notions about what kind of lives american women should lead..” the foundation of the argument appears to be, regardless of one's interpretation, based on the same reality.…

    • 437 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, women’s rights have remained a strong and critical topic in many areas of life. Many politicians, opinion writers, and even authors write or discuss about women’s rights in order to gain sympathy for women or to stir action towards equality. However, in the later part of the 19th century, women were treated as no more than mere objects by men, without any empathy or love. One example that explores the rights of women during the time period is Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. In her short story, Gilman depicts the hurtful relationship between a powerless wife and a husband who has no regards for his spouse. Although the wife was submissive and obedient towards her husband in the…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Many great authors have written stories about the oppression women faced in the past and one was Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the author of the late 19th century short story…

    • 3142 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In comparing the three authors and the literary works of women authors, Kate Chopin (1850 -1904), "The Awakening", Charlotte Perkins Gilman 's (1860-1935), "The Yellow Wallpaper", and Edith Wharton 's (1862-1937) "Souls Belated", many common social issues related to women are brought to light, and though subtly pointed out are an outcry against the conventions of the time. In these three stories, which were written between 1899 and 1913, the era was a time in which it seems, women had finally awaken to realize their social oppression and were becoming rebellious in their pursuit of freedom from the male-dominated societal convention in which they existed. They commenced viewing their social stature as unjustly inferior, and they realized that these conventions placed deterrents on their intellectual and personal growth, and on their freedom to function as an independent person. All three of these women authors have by their literary works, voiced their strong unfavorable feelings about the patriarchal society in which they lived.…

    • 968 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She chose “Harriet Beecher Stowe as her role model”(“Gilman”) being that she is her great-aunt. Gilman’s marriage and motherhood took a huge toll on her. “She broke down, depressed and hysterical, mortified that she had given up her freedom”(“Gilman”). The story she wrote was based on actual events that happened in her life. In her life she had “feeling the need to ‘serve’ by writing full-time, gave up motherhood.”(“Gilman”) Gilman was big in women’s political issues and “helping to organize a Woman’s Congress in San Francisco”(“Gilman”). Treichler, a feminist, believes that “first, through her discussion of diagnosis, she works toward a definition of ‘patriarchal discourse’; and, second, through her close reading of the story she problematizes the image of the wallpaper, thereby calling into question the notion of women’s discourse” (Gauthier 2). Seeing that the events that happened in the story were true events that Gilman went…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Yellow Wallpaper Thesis

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Often times throughout literary works, authors will use their work to express their passion on important topics or to enlighten the reader more about those topics. Author, Charlotte Perkins Gilman does this within her short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Throughout Gilman’s time, she was a leading figure in the women’s movement during the turn of the 20th century. Gilman used her work as a chance to use her voice to challenge the important topics that happened among that era, including conventional gender roles. She also used her own troubles that she faced in her personal life to inspire her short stories. The one short story that relates the most to Gilman’s life is “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Gilman used the troubles in her life to portray the…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Everyone has heard the stories of a woman doing anything for love or enduring anything to keep the man she feels she is in love with. Although this still does happen now, this was happening way more in the 1900s, when women was really dependent on men for mostly everything. During that time, men lead the household making all the decisions in the relationship. They were dominant over their wives and their was no questions asked. Women took a backseat to their men because they were blinded by love and powerless by male dominance. Men loved the fact that they could control their wives. In Zora Neale Hurston, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” Janie is the character that is blinded by her wanting love. In the critical essay, “ I Love the Way Janie Crawford Left Her Husbands,” Washington talks about how Janie is “made powerless by her three husbands” and this essay will talk about the extent of this in reference to Tea Cake, her third husband.…

    • 1550 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In a time where a woman’s place was in the home, her duty was to serve her husband, and her hobbies included reading her Bible and birthing babies, Fanny Fern (Sarah Willis) dared to write. Her columns encouraged women to abandon the prospects of matrimony, and pulled back the curtain on the perfect American marriage. Fern’s writings challenged the ideals of marriage, sexual inequality, and religiously based modesty.…

    • 1386 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The role of women in society has changed dramatically over the centuries from women being inferior to men, to women gaining autonomy. The issue of gender roles has also changed over time; where in the late 1800’s males dominated the workplace and home, to women now acquiring more independence and self-worth. This paper will discuss the similarities of themes between the two short stories of “The Revolt of Mother” by Mary E Wilkins Freeman and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Through each of these short stories the literary elements of style, symbolism, and irony will be discussed, impacting the theme in various ways. Over time, the role of women in society continues to change, shaping each individual into a new era of freedom and rights.…

    • 1272 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Short story paper outline Introduction (Feminist literature) Topic Sentence – Gilman’s main purpose for writing the yellow wallpaper is to convey the relationship between a husband/wife in the 19th century. General Exposition – Throughout the story we shift back and forth through the narrator’s consciousness and real life situations. Narrow the Focus – My main focus is the wallpaper in “The yellow wallpaper” which basically represent the narrator’s growing repression. I also tend to focus on the Imagery, and characteristics of the story.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story Gilman speaks out on the excessive power that men have over their wives. Male dominance played a vital role in what women could and could not do. In the story Gilman portrays the limitations that a woman to keep them at a constant state. The authority that men had placed women with a…

    • 1226 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote a story of a woman in the 1900’s, she gradually loses her sanity due to a “nervous condition.” The woman in the story exemplifies the women in Gilman’s era; she verifies this by writing her story in a mode of horror. The usage of imagery, and plot development exposes the irrational and unjust treatment women are getting by men in her time, which exposes the reality that no one wants see.…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Lives for women in 1892 were heavily controlled by men. Women were treated as if they were inferior to men. Charlotte Perkins Gilman brings light to this problem in a interesting way. Gilman herself, was in fact driven to near madness and later claimed to have written “The Yellow Wallpaper” to protest this treatment of women like herself, and specifically to address her physician. Although they never replied to Gilman personally, they are said to have confessed to a friend that they had changed their treatment of hysterics after reading the story. While real life aspects are apparent it’s the symbolism and subliminal feminist in her story to show how a woman’s role in society is limited with no control or creative outlet.…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “The Yellow Wallpaper” written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman engages the audience into the inner self of a young mother and wife throughout the story. The story has grown from a remedy to depression to a female defiance to a male society. Gilman’s purpose in writing “The Yellow Wallpaper” shows the courage a woman had to demonstrate a positive change in her self-identity and free her from the social, domestic, and psychological confinement that were placed on women in the 1800’s. By writing the story from a first-person feministic point of view the narrator shows the struggle of women’s independence and individuality in a male dominated society through gender stereotype that exist between the society and the protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper.”…

    • 3424 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history women have always been stereotyped as weak. Society has labeled them as being housewives and servants for men; they had no freedom and lived under the shadows of their husbands. Although being prejudiced by society and men, women were finally brave enough to stand up for their rights in 1848 at the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, despise their emotional issues and traditional ways of history. Kate Chopin’s Story of an Hour and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper portrays clearly the kind of psychological struggles and vigorous desolation women went through with men.…

    • 961 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics