Conclusion

As we see, these women were all very powerful defenders and advocates of women's rights and fighters against the oppression that the women were under in their marriages, work, and education. The work and stories of these writers came from the experiences that they dealt with in their own lives. They could only hope for better lives of the women that followed after them.

Introduction

Throughout history we see the struggle against inequality of women. They were viewed as inferior to men. Some women lowered themselves to that station of life where as others fought against that calling. They believed that they had the responsibility to give women opportunity to develop to what they could become. Women should be treated as equal to men. As women realized this and fought against their oppression, they had to find ways to do so. One of the best ways that they were able to show and spread their views was through writing and publishing books. As we take a look at three different authors, Katherine Chopin, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, we see how their individual circumstances shaped their stories, and how they fought against women's oppression through their work.

Works Cited Page

"Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper"-The "New Woman" | EDSITEment." Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper"-The "New Woman" | EDSITEment. National Endowment for the Humanities, n.d. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/charlotte-perkins-gilmans-yellow-wall-papermdashthe-new-woman>.

Hadley, Gregory. "Rebecca Harding Davis: AnIntroduction to Her Life, Faith, and Literature." Rebecca Harding Davis: An Introduction to Her Life, Faith, AndLiterature. Gregory Hadley, n.d. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://www.nuis.ac.jp/~hadley/publication/rhd/RHD.htm>.

Ho, Pham. "Essays of American Literature." The Reason of Her Death “of Joy That Kills”. N.p., 25 May 2007. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://my.opera.com/essays/blog/the-reason-of-her-death-of-joy-that-kills>.

Voth, Lori. "Literary Analysis The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman." Yahoo! Contributor Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://voices.yahoo.com/literary-analysis-yellow-wallpaper-charlotte-11251.html?cat=38>.

Wyatt, Neal. "Biography of Kate Chopin." Biography of Kate Chopin. N.p., 1995. Web. 04 May 2013. <http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/hour/katebio.html>.

Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910)

Rebecca Harding Davis was born on June 24, 1831. The events within her life led her to be more of an advocate for women's rights. Her father was a prominent businessman who 'considered women as little more than servants.' However, he was not a cruel man but was strict and thought of the world as vulgar. She was nurtured by her father and taught and educated by her mother who brought to her a love of books and reading. In her spare time she would be found in her backyard tree house reading books by Nathaniel Hawthorne and John Bunyan. When she was older she wished to attend college, but her father thought it as pointless and a waste of money to give a woman that type of education.   "Rebecca eventually went to Washington Women’s Seminary in Washington, Pennsylvania, a school which trained women to become missionaries, pastor’s wives and teachers.  During this time she studied the Bible intensively.  Washington, Pennsylvania was also on the American lecture circuit, which meant that scholars and political thinkers regularly came to the city to lecture on abolitionism, human rights, women’s rights and the plight of immigrants.  Couched within the ethical teachings of Christianity, Rebecca Harding Davis was challenged to explore ideas, read widely, and think for herself about social as well as religious issues.  Judging from her later writings, it is likely that during this time in her life, Davis began to reach the conclusion that in order to be faithful to the ethical teachings of Christ, one should work for to bring justice to those who were suffering injustice."

This is where she began her search for equality. After graduation she returned home to her parents who were 'hostile' against her liberal ideas and assigned her the task of 'women's work' watching over her younger brothers and sisters.

 

"In her spare time, Rebecca tried to continue her education at home by studying her brother’s old college textbooks, but under the psychological pressure of her parent’s constant opposition and the chore of taking care of little children,  she became deeply depressed.  She felt that life had become a curse because she was unable to use anything that she had learned.[7]  From the pit of this despair, she found strength to make a break from the bondage imposed upon her by her family and social class. Soon afterwards, she got a job writing for the local newspaper, the Wheeling Intelligencer.[8]  This allowed her to get away from the oppressive influence of her family a few hours each day, and to make a little money.  More importantly, during the twelve years that she worked the Intelligencer, Davis was able to hone her writing skills and witness the real life drama of people’s lives unfold in front of her eyes on a regular basis."

 

Around 1863 Rebecca married Lemuel Clarke Davis, 'an abolitionist writer for Peterson’s and admirer of her stories and novels.' They had two sons and one daughter. One of those sons, Richard Harding Davis, became a writer and journalist more famous than she.

 

Much of Rebecca Harding Davis' work focused on the search for equality for women. In her story Marcia, we see that the story line comes from her own experience with education and the hostility from her parents. "The call for equal opportunities in education for women is highlighted in Marcia.  In it, a woman of great courage and creativity attempts to become a writer, but because she was denied the right to get a formal education, fails in her endeavor.  Broken and desperate, she is eventually condemned to become the wife of an ignorant farmer.  The need to free women who are locked in various forms of bondage is dealt with in Promise of the Dawn and In the Market.   In Promise of the Dawn, we find a young homeless lady reaching out in desperation for someone to liberate her from the filth and moral decay of her environment.  She eventually dies after being rejected by middle-class Christians who had the ability to help her.  In the Market examines the effects of sexual discrimination and marriage upon 19th century American women.  The story features the lives of two sisters.  One marries for convenience, but after a short time of prosperity, ends up a defenseless and poor widow.  The other sister delays marriage and after years of struggle and sacrifice, eventually becomes independent enough to marry for love and take care of her impoverished sister."

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was born July 3, 1860. She struggled through her difficult childhood with her father abandoning her family forcing them to move many different times. Because of her many moves, her education suffered and she often felt alone and depressed. She married artist Charles Stetson at age twenty-four and birthed a daughter named Katherine. Within the ten years of her marriage to Charles, Charlotte suffered severe depression and although she went through many treatments she never fully recovered. This struggle with depression was the basis for her short story, The Yellow Wallpaper. This story emphasized her experience with loneliness and depression. The character in the story feels trapped and inferior. She doesn't like to be told what to do but is not confident in herself. Throughout the story she gains that confidence. In a Literary Analysis of The Yellow Wallpaper it explains this.
 "Finally, the woman completely lets herself go. She enjoys looking at and playing with the wallpaper and she no longer cares what anyone thinks. She totally and uninhibitedly gives in to herself and allows her feelings to be expressed. "Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. IT sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it" (171). The woman is doing as she wills and destroying that which limits her. One may argue that she has gone insane, and subsequently furthered her illness, but I believe Gilman's intention is to show her celebration of self. "I've got out at last," she says to John, "in spite of you and Jane. And I've pushed off most of the paper so you can't put me back" (172). Finally, John faints. And now, it is the woman who is in control, creeping over him."

I believe that Charlotte wrote this story as a 'Ha, I'll show you' type of piece. This was her way of reaching for an equality for women and developing herself to the 'fullest degree.'

For many years I suffered from a severe and continuous nervous breakdown tending to melancholia-and beyond. During about the third year of this trouble I went, in devout faith and some faint stir of hope, to a noted specialist in nervous diseases, the best known in the country. This wise man put me to bed and applied the rest cure, to which a still good physique responded so promptly that he concluded that there was nothing much the matter with me, and sent me home with solemn advice to 'live as domestic a life as possible,' to 'have but two hours' intelligent life a day,' and 'never to touch pen, brush or pencil again as long as I lived.' This was in 1887…—Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "Why I Wrote the Yellow Wall-paper," 1913

Every kind of creature is developed by the exercise of its functions. If denied the exercise of its functions, it can not develop in the fullest degree.
—Charlotte Perkins Stetson (Gilman),
from Hearing of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Washington, D.C., January 28, 1896

The interesting thing about Charlotte Gilman though, is that in 1935, when she was informed that she had inoperable breast cancer, she committed suicide. I feel that she is giving up on her life which doesn't really support all that she thought on the life of women. I also though it was interesting because she expressed thoughts of suicide within The Yellow Wallpaper.

"The paper is describes as being

…dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study, and when you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide-plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions (161).

This paragraph is extremely important to the story, portraying not only how the woman feels about herself, but also what her husband's therapy is doing to her. Her description of the paper being "dull enough to confuse the eye" and "constantly irritating and provoking study" is alluding to her sense of inferiority and burden. The "lame uncertain curves" she speaks of are likely to reference the ridiculous suggestions that he husband makes for her, and "suicide" being the fate that is destined to result if followed. The "unheard of contradictions" express the faultiness of John's methods. She describes him at one point: "He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let any silly fancies run away with me" (165). He does not, however let her do what she wills to do and what she knows she should do, which is use her mind and express herself."

Kate Chopin (1850-1904)

 Katherine O'Flaherty Chopin was born in February of 1850. Many events in her life led her to doubt religion. In A Biography of Kate Chopin by Neal Wyatt "Kate's grandmother died three days before Christmas in 1863, the same year Kitty was banished. Kate's half-brother, George, died in the war of typhoid fever on Mardi Gras Day. Her father had died on All Saints day, eight years previously, and these unhappy incidents combined to create a strong skepticism of religion in Chopin." Kate married Oscar Chopin at age twenty and birthed seven children. "By all accounts he adored his wife, admired her independence and intelligence, and "allowed" her unheard of freedom." However in 1882 Oscar died of swamp fever and left her in huge debt to run a store. She tried for a bit to run it but eventually took her family and moved back in with her mother. Her mother died that next year. In order to support her family she began to write. By 1899 "she was well known as both a local colorist and a woman writer, and had published over one hundred stories, essays, and sketches in literary magazines." When, however, she tried to publish her new story, The Awakening, they denied her because the content and message of the story caused an uproar in society. "She was terribly hurt by the reaction to the book and in the remaining five years of her life she wrote only a few short stories, and only a small number of those were published. Like Edna, she paid the price for defying societal rules, and as Lazar Ziff explains, she 'learned that her society would not tolerate her questionings...She was alive when the twentieth century began, but she had been struck mute by a society fearful in the face of an uncertain dawn.'" On August 8, 1904, Kate died from a cerebral hemorrhage. Towards the end of Kate's life we see that she was feeling oppressed. She saw that the society that once accepted her now became angry at her words. In her story, The Story of an Hour, Katherine portrays this feeling of oppression.

 

This Video below gives a short summary of that story:

 

"The reason of Mrs. Mallard's death “of joy that kills” can be understood as the real joy of freedom or the scare of getting back to the depressing life. Yet, as for me, the second thought takes priority over the first one. It is more persuasive to conclude that Mrs. Mallard died from shock and disappointment, rather than joy as the doctors diagnosed. Towards the reason of her death, the literary term “of joy that kills” implies a sense of irony which enhances the bitter sweetness of the ending."

I feel that this is what happened to Katherine Chopin. When she realized that the society would not tolerate her work and her questions, she was "struck mute by a society fearful in the face of an uncertain dawn" dying only a few short years later.