Sentimental Plot Essay

During the 19th century many writers began to publish works with sentimental plots. Generally the sentimental plot is written to make the reader feel an excess of unnecessary emotions, by overemphasizing every work. In every sentimental plot there will always be the typical sentimental hereon that fits the stereotype of a young orphan, unmarried women with moral obstacles. In this plot there are only two types of women the ones that are considered good and the ones that are bad. In the sentimental plot the good will get rewarded by marrying a decent man and the bad will always die. Even though this plot was very popular among writers many women were not happy with how the women were being portrayed among men writers so they decided to go against this plot. With women writers some would tend to go against the sentimental romance plot and instead write about actual situations that were happening around them. One example of this would be in Kate Chopin’s story “The Storm” it featured a married women falling into the seductions of a old flame. “Do you remember in Assumption, Calixta? He asked in a low voice broken by passion. Oh! She remembered; for in Assumption he had kissed her and kissed and kissed her; until his senses would well nigh fail, and to save her he would resort to a desperate flight. If she was not an immaculate dove in those days, she was still inviolate; a passionate creature whose very defenselessness had made her defense, against which his honor forbade him to prevail.” Pg. 559 Author Kate Chopin was unable to publish her works because of the featured adultery with no follow up punishment, in order for her to successfully publish she would have to follow the sentimental romance plot and kill Calixta in the end to prove that the decisions she made were wrong and had consequences. Mary E. Wilkins in “The Revolt of Mother” is another example that goes against the grain of the sentimental plot it deals with a mother that confronts her husband