Literary Development of the Possibility of Feminist Power - Essay Example

?Literary Development of the Possibility of Feminist Power In comparing three works that deal with the development of power by women: Daisy Miller (James), The Awakening (Chopin) and My Antonia (Cather); one can almost track the development of feminist literature of this era. First, we have the work of Kate Chopin, The Awakening, which is always a little different. Her protagonist, Edna, discovers her sexuality and also finds her voice, but cannot make herself accept the behaviour required of her by her environment and chooses instead to die. Daisy Miller, the title and protagonist of Henry James’ novel, is exploring her own freedom in the novel. She behaves in unseemly ways for her environment, and yet is absolutely innocent, but her wilfulness leads her to make a poor choice that ultimately leads to her death. It is a fitting end for her time if we judge by the mores of her contemporaries. Finally we come to My Antonia by Willa Cather, which settles us back to a more sane medium, but completes the mature development of the strong female protagonist. Like her protagonist, Kate Chopin is criticized as being too literal for “polite society” in The Awakening, and the work got many mixed reviews and none that were moderate (Toth, Emily). People either loved or hated this work. The protagonist, Edna, is at the beginning unable to express herself at all. She is embarrassed by almost anything of a sexual nature and cannot speak of such even in the company of other women. She is married and has two children, and then falls in love with another man. She struggles to grow and manages to find her voice and actually luxuriate in her own sexuality. She briefly dreams of coming into her own, and making a life with her lover, but realizes there is no solution as she tells her own story. By the end of the story he has said goodbye to her forever, and she is left with either acceptance of shrinking back into her former self or leaving. She chooses a permanent way to leave as she commits suicide where she met her lover. Edna longed for choices, but those which she had, art and adultery, were unsatisfying in the end, because she longed for true freedom, which society would never give her. Racy stories could be bought, read and shared in her society, so long as they were fictional. Edna had been trapped into marriage and motherhood before she ever had the chance to actually make any informed choices. All choices had been made for her in the paternalistic society of turn of the century New Orleans. Women of her social status were very privileged in many ways, and provided for in many ways, but their lives were really not their own and their choices were few. They had socially mandated roles to fulfil. Edna found that unacceptable, as did Kate Chopin. Kate wrote about it and her protagonist made the ultimate choice and took her own life, her final statement of freedom (Beer and Nolan 61). Daisy Miller in the novel by the same name by Henry James was either considered an unwise innocent or a doomed sinner by the readers at its publication ( Bloom 25). She begins the novel as a wilful girl in need of a chaperone. However, the novel is subtly didactic, since even though she is allowed to develop into her own and insist upon having her way, the choice she makes to go out with another man is the very thing that ends her life, as she contracts the dreaded Roman Fever and dies a few days later. In this way, people who disapprove of her as a character can shake their fingers and say, “I told you so!” Those who understood may feel a bit cheated by the ending. Willa Cather finally creates a character that manages to mature as a feminist character in My Antonia. In fact, all her characters seem mature feminist and balanced gendered. The women are capable and the men are tender (Fletcher). Antonia during the story works like a man alongside her brother after their father dies. However, when her brother proceeds to hire her out to other homesteads, their mother puts a stop to it by finding Antonia a domestic position. My Antonia brings us full circle to a finally satisfying portrait of a truly feminist role. More important in Cather’s novel than freedom is respect accorded to literate people, and immigrants and females were considered to be less able with effective speech or writing. Antonia defies this description and is as capable as any first language man in the story (Wussow). By the end of the novel, Antonia is married and has 11 children. This novel shows quite another side to the feminist movement, and Antonia is an appropriate heroine. Each of these stories shows a different kind of heroine and a different side to feminism of its time. All of these works were ahead of their times, and their heroines were subject to disapproval. Only My Antonia did not suffer strong disapproval, probably due to the fact that the family were foreign pioneers, and because Antonia had returned to the normal feminine role as wife and mother (Meyering 135). The latest of these works was published in the early 20th century, not as close to the “women’s movement” as expected by the content of the stories. It is an interesting look at the development of feminist literature. Beer, Janet, and Elizabeth Nolan, eds. Kate Chopin's The Awakening: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2004. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. Bloom, Harold, ed. Henry James's Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw, and Other Tales. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1987. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. ---, ed. Henry James's Daisy Miller, The Turn of the Screw, and Other Tales. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1987. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. Cather, Willa. My Antonia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1954. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. Fletcher, Angus. "Willa Cather and the Upside-Down Politics of Feminist Darwinism." Frontiers - A Journal of Women's Studies 34.2 (2013): 114+. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. Meyering, Sheryl L. Understanding O Pioneers! and My Antonia: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002. Questia. Web. 11 Nov. 2013. Toth, Emily. Unveiling Kate Chopin. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi, 1999. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. ---. Unveiling Kate Chopin. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi, 1999. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. Wussow, Helen. "Language, Gender, and Ethnicity in Three Fictions by Willa Cather." Women and Language 18.1 (1995): 52+. Questia. Web. 10 Nov. 2013. Read More