At the Beach, by Charles Dana Gibson, 1901 courtesy of wikipedia; in the public domain
As we move from the nineteenth to the twentieth century, American literature reflects significant social changes. Emily Dickinson's and Walt Whitman's poetry alert us to a dramatic change in stylistics, as well as a seismic shift in the philosophy behind men's and women's social roles. The days of separate spheres, with men going out into the world and women maintaining the domestic realm were coming to a close. The "sanctity" of womanhood (the Cult of True Womanhood) and its attendant power were being challenged by a more secular movement of women to explore their full selves through work outside the home, political activism, and--shockingly--celebrating their sexuality.
All three women writers we're reading this week wrote revolutionary exposés of women's lives. Kate Chopin's "The Storm" was seen as so racy that it wasn't published until 1969 (incidentally, the same year as the infamous "summer of love"). Edith Wharton's chronicles of the fall of the old New York aristocracy and the rise of the nouveau riche also touched on women's liberation and passion--consider the shocking truth at the heart of "Roman Fever." And Charlotte Perkins Gilman, perhaps the most strikingly political of the three authors, takes on the medical establishment and its treatment of "women's issues," as well as the social system that contrives to isolate and infantilize women in "The Yellow Wallpaper."
To best understand the revolutionary nature of these three stories, it's helpful to have a sense of both the Cult of True Womanhood and the New Woman.
How do these stories show a shift in women's roles? Do vestiges of the old roles remain? How do women help and/or hurt one another? What roles does class and race play into these stories, as well as gender?
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