Preview

Women In Persuasion

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1670 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Women In Persuasion
JaMarkus House
McQuirk
3rd Block

Women, as compared to men, are seen as minuscule. Women are expected to completely surrender all aspects of their life to men, while still being the emotional backbone of the family. Society sometimes thinks that women can only hold jobs as housekeepers, maids, or some other type of demeaning job. They are not afforded the opportunity to ever gain any high positions. Not only should they be allowed to gain a higher level of authority; but also gain the respect they deserve. In the book Persuasion, Jane Austen uses multiple characters, to portray how poorly women were treated in the 19th century and how they are taken for granted. In the early 19th century women did not have a big role in
…show more content…
Anne, another character in Persuasion, marries Wentworth, which makes her financially stable in society. If Anne had not married Wentworth she would have remained single, and not necessarily poor, but unstable financially. Posusta agrees that “Women in the 19th century learned their place at an early age. Women received the small amount of education afforded to them under the tutelage of their father, brothers, and guidebooks that were specifically designed to school them on how they should occupy space physically, socially and psychologically”(Posusta 76). Women in those days were sent off to finishing schools to teach them how to succumb to a man’s every wish. Having said this, men thought they were teaching women all they needed to know to get ahead in society, but they were wrong. Women, as well as men, had a right to an education! Posusta also reflects on the fact that “The gender of room in the 18th and 19th century was a product of patriarchal ideas about domestic and public spaces” (Posusta 76). Men and women generally pursue an interest in separate spheres. Because of this, the Victorian period proved that women and men had different aspirations and their ambitions should not be decided by anyone except themselves, therefore separated and different. Men were typically thought of as powerful, active, brave, independent, ambitious, and clean. On the other …show more content…
Neubauer agrees with Posusta in that they both feel the same. Neubauer states that “Although Anne readily admits that men occupy the world far more dangerously than most women, but men are offered this opportunity, women are not. This distinction is what causes women to cling more tightly to their feelings and to the men they live vicariously through” (Neubauer 132). In society, men are typically offered more and better positions and things in life than women. The opportunity for a male to achieve greatness is simple and they actually succeed nine times out of

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Britain in the 19th century was a patriarchal society and the dominant idea was that there are irrefutable natural differences between genders. Therefore, males, who occupied the dominant positions, were born for business, finance, and politics, while women were expected to marry, manage the family, and take care of the children. It seems that females in that period were thought to be miserable, tragic, and wretched and did not have suffrage rights, the right to sue, or the right to own property. Their inferior jobs such as babysitter or textile worker were barely enough to survive on. Worse still, most working women were employed in the unskilled, unorganized, service jobs and were paid a lower salary. Some of them were even required to become prostitutes out of desperation. Later, females entered some male dominated industries, but they only got one third of a man’s salary. There were still a large amount of women who lived as housewives, like Mrs. Thorold was pretending to do in the novel. They merely managed the family or were considered decoration in the living room. Women’s social value and working rights were denied by men, who were the heads of society.…

    • 1618 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Fay Weldon’s ‘Letters to Alice on First reading Jane Austen’, through the didactic literary form of an epistolic novel, serves to encourage a heightened understanding of the role of women in Jane Austen’s social, cultural and historical context, and also aims to present the parallels of women in both texts. In doing so, it inspires the modern responder to adopt a more sincere appreciation for the perspectives of Austen and Weldon of women inherent in both ‘Pride and Prejudice’ and ‘Letters to Alice’. Through the inclusion of relevant contextual information from Austen’s time and didactic assertions of the fictional character Aunt Fay, Weldon implores the responder to accept her opinions on the role of women in both her and Austen’s context. Her discussion of this, which delves into marriage, feminism and the patriarchal influence, transforms a modern responder’s understanding of the themes and context explored in both texts, and moreover, alters the way in which the responder perceives the events and decisions of the women within the novels.…

    • 1643 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Jane Austen wrote her book about life for women in the nineteenth century; the Regency period. For women in this period, life was very unbalanced, women were not perceived as equals and men were superior and had full authority in every aspect of life. There was a clear segregation among men and women and the values they were expected to maintain.…

    • 2674 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women have always played a major role in society. They play very essential roles such as the carrier of the life cycle. They were created to be a companion of man. Overtime women have varied their roles in today’s society. As seen in the novel’s The Crucible by Arthur Miller and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, women can travel outside of society’s norms. Women also played major role in both novels. These stories were written by totally opposite authors but the settings of these stories are the same, the Puritan era. Both authors portrayed the strengths of women while also portraying their downfalls too.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many aspects of setting displayed throughout the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. One of these many aspects, is that of the struggles women faced in Mid-19th Century England. During this time period, women were pushed into very gender-specific roles. Their jobs were to service their husbands, while doing the typical housewife chores of cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the children. There was no equality for women, and they suffered through many hardships simply for being born a woman instead of a man.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “It’s a fact that more women read Jane Austen than men”, says Vic, a blogger. One might want to know why, so an individual might research and discover that many men say the real reason they do not like Jane Austen is because, “ the main characters are girls and I am a guy” blaming the reason that they do not like her works on the bases of it not being relatable. In actuality, men do not like Austen because she depicts men as exactly what they are. In her novel Sense and Sensibility, there is John Dashwood who is characterized as an easily tempted man who does not think for himself. There is also, John Willoughby and Edward Farris who start off as good guys…

    • 1205 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre tells the story of Jane’s growth and development as she searches for a meaningful existence in society. Author Faith McKay said, “No matter what your family happens to be like…it affects who you are. It matters.” Jane is an orphan, forced to battle a cruel guardian, a patriarchal society, and a rigid social order. (Anderson, “Identity and Independence in Jane Eyre”) Jane has concrete beliefs in what women deserve, as well as obtainable goals for how she imagines her place in society as a woman (Lewkowicz, “The Experience of Womanhood in Jane Eyre”) and with self-growth, Jane Eyre was able to define herself as well as equip herself with wisdom and…

    • 116 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Gender as we see it today can be a touchy subject to most people because it has evolved into ideas that were, back then, inconceivable. The roles of women have been evolving since the early twentieth century, when women didn't hold many important roles, to present times when women can have the opportunity to become CEOs of major companies. The first indication of a new strong and independent American woman, by the name of Brett, surfaced in the Ernest Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. In Hemingway’s novel, Brett had less regard to her consent of the social expectations of her time period, than any other female character that follows her in American literature.…

    • 930 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout history women have been given no credit for all the work they have done. From helping lead the country to tricking people in their favor. Women like Lady Macbeth, Grendel’s Mother, and even the Wife of a Nobel Man in Sir Gawain and the Green Night, they played a big part in their stories that were very undermined and unappreciated.…

    • 550 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women of this era were considered as innocent, pure, kind but submissive, powerless, passive and were believed not to be able to function on their own in public as they were silent throughout te novel. Women did not speak directly and had everything they had to say through a male companion.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The struggle for women to gain equality has been an ongoing issue for centuries. Although in the 18th century, the status of women in society was not as a widespread issue. However, some important women writers who did express their opinion on this topic were Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane Austen. These writers agreed on what the status of woman should be in society, although they both showed it in different ways. In Wollstonecraft’s, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” she bluntly explains how women cut themselves short in almost every aspect of life just because of common convention. While Austen in her novel, Pride and Prejudice, portrays her view that women should and have the ability to have a voice, through the way she presents her characters. The characters in Austen’s novel embody the points of Wollstonecraft’s argument.…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    They considered inferior than men and had no saying in decision making. From this perspective of women is developed back in the 1600s and 1700s, but even modern day, the perceptions are still apply. For example, women politicians and entrepreneurs are few compare with men, and women generally make less money than men in…

    • 609 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Women were also seen to be lower class citizens treated as property by their husband. This changed with The Cult of Domesticity or “true womanhood”. Women were now charged with the task of being moral compasses for the entire family. Their influence on the family would manifest itself within the well-behaved society they would grow into. Thus they were admired for their moral goodness and were seen as an authoritative figure when it came to morality.…

    • 736 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Young girls could only dream of continuing their schooling and obtaining a higher education. Men, who had control over women, didn 't believe women were intelligent enough. God forbid they hurt themselves through straining their brains! In men 's minds, a woman should have stayed at home taking care of her husband 's house and children while he was away on business. Women were also expected to educate the male children before they were old enough to go to school and acquire more knowledge then their mother. Girls looked upon their brothers who would leave home to explore the world and start new lives with jealousy. Girls only had the option to dwell at home and learn the responsibilities of being a good wife and very much a slave to her future husband.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Feminism. Arguably one of the most misunderstood terms to date. In order to move forward and grow as a society, feminism is vital. Of course, sexism still exists and I doubt, there will ever be a time in history where it does not; much like racism- but generally, we have come a long way. The road for equal rights has been a long and sometimes, dangerous one as can be observed through texts such as Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Robert Browning's My Last Duchess Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette and Charlotte Perkins-Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. This idea of gender inequality can be readily observed through the aforementioned texts and in fact, many others, regardless of the era in which they were first written. Women being treated as possessions,…

    • 1567 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays