A Shift in Women's Roles

After reading The Yares of the Black Mountains, I noticed that the roles of women were portrayed very differently. As I read, I compared women in the story to women we have read about earlier in the semester. I found that Davis described women doing activities that other authors had men doing.

In past stories and excerpts we have read, women tended to have responsibilities such as making toast, being social, taking care of the house, raising the children, and sewing. In The Yares of the Black Mountains, some women have these same responsibilities, while others are described as having more physically challenging roles. An example of this is on page 264 when the author describes a woman's work as: "She took an axe an' went out, an' didn't come home till mornin'. In three days she hed cut down logs an' built a hut, six feet by ten, among the laurels yonder, haulin' an' liftin' them logs herself..." This behavior is unusual to see women involved with in nineteenth century literature. Normally, women remained indoors and acted very dainty. This shift in thinking took me by surprise.

Another place we see this different portrayal of women is near the very beginning of the story. On page 243, Davis paints a scene by saying, "I saw a woman ploughing with an ox just now on the hillside, where it was so steep I thought woman, plough, and ox would roll down together." Working in the field is something rare to see a woman doing in literature at this time. Instead of working inside of the house, the woman is getting her hands dirty and doing what many would consider "man's work".

After discovering this shift in descriptions of women, I wondered why Davis would choose to do such a thing. It could be to raise awareness of equality for women. We discussed in class that The Yares of the Black Mountains can be considered an activist text, so women's rights may be an issue that the author was bringing to the surface.

Gender Comparison

Young girls and young boys seem to play very different roles in nineteenth century American literature. Though both genders are to be viewed as role models, the lessons the characters teach are very different. After reading Ragged Dick, I got to see how boys are represented in literature, and how it compares to the ways girls are represented.

From past readings, young girls have been depicted as dependent. Whether it is that they are always learning from an adult, or being saved by someone, girls come across as being needy and reliant. Little boys, on the other hand, seem to be more independent. In Ragged Dick, Dick must be self-sufficient by making his own money and striving to survive on the streets. This situation would be extremely difficult to find a little girl character in. To help himself, Dick works as a boot shiner. His job was best described in the text when the narrator states, “The boots were soon polished in Dick’s best style, which proved very satisfactory, our hero being a proficient in the art.” To compare Dick to a girl character, I choose Ellen Montgomery from The Wide, Wide World. Ellen had nothing to worry about but making toast and learning about religion. Dick, however, had to worry about bigger issues like where he was sleeping or what he could afford to eat. Nineteenth century authors seem to give boys more challenges to struggle with than girls. With this in mind, it is easy to see how girls represent dependency, while boys symbolize independency.

After reading the excerpt from Ragged Dick, I believe that young boys in literature are meant to be relatable. Whether it is the main character, or a secondary character, all walks of life seem to be represented. In Ragged Dick, there is Dick, the poor boy trying to find his way. On the other end of the spectrum, there is Frank who symbolizes the upper class young boy. So whether the reader is in the upper or lower class of society, they will have a character to relate to. This is obviously a rhetorical device used to capture an audience and make the narrative more realistic. I am not sure that all nineteenth century stories about little boys are like this, but Ragged Dick backs up this conclusion.

Insane in the Dark

In the second half of the excerpt read from A Whisper in the Dark, the reader is made aware that the narrator is in an insane asylum. Due to this, the question arises on who to trust. 

The introduction of insanity in the text definitely changed my opinion of Sybil. I found myself feeling sorry for her in the second half of the excerpt, as opposed to seeing her as a strong, independent woman at first. As Louisa May Alcott described Sybil's slow deterioration while in the asylum, I started to wonder if the whole first half of the excerpt was the imagination of the narrator. It came to my attention that the relationship between Sybil and her uncle could have been exaggerated or even made up. For example, on page 218, Sybil is trying to get information out of her uncle by seducing him. She then describes her uncle's reaction as: "My uncle stopped laughing, his hand tightened its grasp, for a moment his cold eye glittered and a grim look settled round the mouth, giving to his whole face a ruthless expression that entirely altered it." After knowing that she was sent to an insane asylum, I questioned whether this scene happened the exact way the story was told, or if her mind somehow changed the situation to make her look like the victim. In fact, the entire story could possibly be a twisted version of the truth. If you think about it, all of A Whisper in the Dark is written from the perspective of Sybil, who is, at one point, thought to be insane. The entire story could be false. 

When it comes to Sybil's mother being insane, another interesting element is added to the story. After Sybil has been in the asylum for a good amount of time, I started feeling like she was placed there not because she was insane, but to make her insane. Knowing that her mother had psychological issues, it was easy for Sybil's uncle to get his way by convincing others that Sybil had her own psychological problems. Although her mother was mentally ill, she still had enough maternal instincts to provide help and support for her daughter. This is displayed in the text when Sybil explains, "I believed her dead, yet I had seen her, knew where her solitary grave was made, and still carried in my bosom the warning she had sent me, prompted by the unerring instinct of a mother's heart." Even though insanity was in the picture, the relationship between mother and daughter remained similar to other texts we have read - due to instinct, a mother is willing to do anything to protect her daughter and give her what she thinks is best to live her life to the fullest.