Affecting Change

Writers tend to use their works to affect change in their society. Whether it is to bring about a shift in thinking, or a shift in actions, authors share their views through their writing.

In Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, the author uses setting to create a strong feminist tone. As we talked about in class, the room in which the character is trapped in creates a parameter set by her husband. This represents the constrictions men placed on women during this time. The woman behind the wallpaper could possibly be a symbol for a woman being trapped behind the restrictions placed on her. At the end of the story, when the narrator rips away the wallpaper to release the woman stuck behind, Perkins Gilman is making a very clear statement. The reader can immediately tell that this action taking place relates to a woman breaking out of her containment. The story as a whole, but especially the ending, makes a strong feminist declaration by Perkins Gilman.

We also can see that other authors use their writing as a way to get their opinions and views out. An example of this from excerpts we have already read would be EDEN Southworth’s The Hidden Hand. In The Hidden Hand, Southworth has her main character, Capitola, dress as a boy in order to survive on her own in the city. Capitola blatantly states Southworth’s opinion on gender discrimination when she says, “…I, because I was a girl, was not allowed to carry a gentleman’s parcel or black his boots, or shovel the snow off of a shopkeeper’s pavement, or put in coal, or do anything that I could do just as well as they.” By writing such things, the author shows that she disagrees with the amount of inequality of genders and expects change from her readers.

Gender vs Religion

As I was reading the excerpt from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, I realized that there is a large distinction between how boys and girls think about religion and apply it to their lives. This difference can be seen within the excerpt, along with when compared to other stories from the nineteenth century.

The gender division in religion was a major theme in Tom Sawyer. I think that Mark Twain created characters based off of the idea that girls/women are taught to be more religion-based than boys/men. For example, on page 3 of Tom Sawyer, Aunt Polly (in her own aside) brings up her religious beliefs when talking about Tom and his mischievous ways. In describing her nephew she says, “Well-a-well, man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture says, and I reckon it’s so.” This reference to the Bible, along with other revelations of her religion, sets her up to seem as if she has been taught it all of her life. Tom, along with all of the other boys mentioned in the excerpt, do not circle their lives around their religion. The only time we ever see Tom even speak of Scripture or the Bible is when he is conniving his way into being awarded a new Bible. According to pages 34 and 35, being awarded a Bible was more for show than for the purpose of widening his knowledge. The story states that Tom’s “entire being had for many a day longed for the glory and the éclat that came with [the prize of a Bible].” This shows that religion was not as important to boys as it was girls.

This religious difference when it comes to gender has also been seen through other stories we have read. Just like Tom in Tom Sawyer, Dick in Ragged Dick does not mention his life ever being circled around God or any sort of religion. With these young boys, there does not seem to be as big of a religious push from adults to force them into learning more about having faith in God. When thinking about the girls we have read about, on the other hand, we know that religion was repetitively stamped into their minds and there was always a religious mold for them to fill. This difference from story to story again shows that boys and girls are split when it comes to what they base their lives around.