"WE CAN DO IT!" trumpeted throughout the country as American women
began to join the war effort in 1914. Their outstanding contribution to the
country and its people during a time of crisis resulted in them winning the
vote in 1920. Not only did winning the vote allow them to have a say in political
matters, but women were treated more as equals with men. During the war, they
had shown that they could do the jobs the men had done. Between the early
19th century and the early 20th century, women gained a lot more control and
freedom as to how they lived their lives and how they interacted with the
"Dominant Man." This is clearly expressed in the American literature
of this period. Female authors, some living in male-dominated environments
that hampered their freedom, wrote about their own struggles in fictional
novels (they probably didn't dare to write them as autobiography) demonstrating
the obstacles that a women of this time and place had to overcome to find
self-realization.
In 1876, Louisa May Alcott wrote her famous novel, Little Women. The
novel is about the four girls and their journey to becoming women and the
obstacles that they face in doing so. They do this in the absence of men in
the family, since their father is mostly away at war. This novel very closely
relates to the life that Alcott lived growing up. Even when he was home, Alcott's
father pursued idealistic projects which kept the family in poverty. A great
deal of the time, it was the women who carried the responsibilities of life.
Alcott makes some of her female characters stronger than her male characters.
For example, Jo (whose name sounds like the boy's name "Joe") is
much stronger and more confident than Laurie (whose names sounds like a girl's
name).
Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in 1899, which is centered around the
roles of women in the Creole society where men control their wives completely.
Kate's mother was French- Creole and treated terribly by her father, who was
constantly absent as a parent. In The Awakening, the main character,
Edna, is constantly pushed around by her controlling husband, "Mr."
Pontellier. He treats her as inferior and complains that she does not fulfill
her duties as a mother. "What folly! To bathe at such an hour in such
heat! You are burnt beyond recognition," yells Mr. Pontellier. This is
a perfect example of how he treats Edna as a child and controls her as a father
controls his children. The novel, as a whole, is about Edna's struggle to
get away from an oppressive relationship, something that Chopin and her mother
surely dreamed of. Chopin's father died in a train accident and in "The
Story of an Hour," Chopin writes about a wife, hearing of her husband's
death in a train accident and how she delights in the thought of freedom.
Chopin writes about stepping outside of the popular majority and finding oneself
and one's freedom without letting oppressive men get in the way.
In 1920, just as women were gaining suffrage, Edith Wharton wrote The Age
of Innocence. The novel portrays its character, Ellen Olenska from Europe,
as an outcast in her unfamiliar New York location. She is looked down upon
by society and is often referred to as the "strange girl." Edith
Wharton was herself considered strange as a child. She constantly rebelled
against the mannerisms and rituals expected of her as a young "well-bred"
girl. Another principal character in the book, Newland Archer, ends up falling
in love with this exotic "Countess" Olenska, but refuses to get
involved with her because he is already married to May Welland, a girl who
portrays the type of lady his society idealizes. Edith Wharton was also courted
by a young man in her later years who refused to become intimate with her
for the same reasons.
Zora Neale Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937. She
begins her novel by vividly establishing the differences between men and women:
Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come
in with the tide. For others they sail forever on he horizon, never out of
sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation,
his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget
all those things that don't want to remember, and remember everything they
don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. They act and then do things
accordingly. (Hurston, p 3)
Men never really reach for their dreams, but women can control their will
and chase their dreams. This is the assertively triumphant woman's statement.
Throughout the book, Hurston describes men as blind because they are unable
to dream and live contentedly without putting down others-in most cases, women.
Her protagonist, Janie Crawford, is forced into an early marriage with an
abusive husband named Logan Killicks. She eventually runs away from him with
her new love, Joe Starks, who ends up in politics as mayor of Eatonville,
Florida. His new job changes their loving relationship as he becomes preoccupied
by many business affairs and she ends up leaving him for her true love, Tea
Cake. But even her true love does not take precedence over self-preservation.
When Tea Cake is bitten by a rabid dog, Janie ends up shooting him to protect
herself from the disease. The book talks about unfortunate relationships and
how to get out of them. As an abused child, Hurston must have dreamed of running
away and planned how to, expressing these ideas through her writing.
Throughout history writing has been a way to express oneself and one's ideas.
Women, who were treated a inferior to men during the early nineteenth century
and the early twentieth century used fictional writing to express their very
real-life, experienced struggles, hardships, and victories. In these writings,
they frequently represented women as stronger than the men who oppressed them
and dominated society. This strength was often a strength of will, a strength
of dreaming, and a strength of self-knowledge.
