Favorite Feminist Literature Part 1: 19th Century
By Julie Sara Porter, Bookworm
In honor of March, Women’s History Month, I am writing a
three-part review series of my favorite works considered Feminist literature
from the 19th to the end of the 20th century. While most of
the authors are women, not all are. The works just have to be told primarily
from a woman’s point of view or feature a female protagonist.
The female protagonists are strong characters who challenge
society’s expectations of them. While some are successful, others are not so
successful. But they certainly let the other characters and the reader know
exactly who they are and how they feel.
I use the term “literature” because while the selections are
mostly novels, I have also included one book of poems and an anthology of short
stories. I am aware that some books are left out. Many such as The Well of Loneliness, Mrs. Dalloway, and Atonement were left out for a very simple reason: I haven’t read
them. (Though I want to). Of course, I am open to any great suggestions of
feminist literature or any other sort of literature that discusses important
topics, so please write your comments below.
All descriptions will include spoilers to the works.
5. The 
Portrait of a Lady
by Henry James (1881)
The plot: Isabel Archer, an intelligent and well-read
American young lady is taken to Europe with her aunt. Her aunt wants her niece
to marry well, but Isabel turns down a marriage proposal from Lord Warburton,
an Englishman and spurns her enamored cousin, Ralph. Ralph’s father and
Isabel’s uncle is captivated by Isabel’s spirit and intelligence and leaves her
half his wealth upon his death. Isabel then becomes the target of fortune hunter,
Gilbert Osmond, in which they engage in an unhappy marriage.
Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: The book is
filled with strong female characters from Henrietta Stackpole, a wry American
journalist to Madame Merle, a scheming conniving con artist. James gives
prominent female characters voices and makes them memorable instead of
stereotypes of dizzy females who live for marriage.
Isabel stands out in this novel as a character who is
brilliantly realized. She questions her role as a woman longing to live a life
of independence and experience many things before she falls into marriage. She
is also flawed as she engages in an unhappy marriage with Osmond, who is
clearly not good enough for her. However, Isabel continues to keep her
independent spirit by helping her stepdaughter, Pansy escape from a marriage to
the wrong man. She also has a fondness for Pansy that overcomes her dislike for
Osmond, wanting to be a guide for the younger girl.
Favorite Quote: Isabel (on turning down Warburton’s marriage
proposal): “I’m not in the first youth-I can do what I choose-I belong to the
independent class. I’ve neither father nor mother; I’m poor and of a serious
disposition; I’m not pretty. I therefore am not bound to be timid and
conventional; indeed I cannot afford such luxuries. Besides, I try to judge
things for myself; to judge wrong, I think is more honorable than to not judge
at all. I don’t wish to be a mere sheep in the flock; I wish to choose my fate
and know something of human affairs beyond what other people think it
compatible with propriety to tell me.”
4. 
Tess of the
D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1891)
The plot: After her father
discovers that her family is descended from nobility, Tess Durbeyfield claims
relation to the titled D’Urberville family. She falls in a relationship with
the caddish Alec D’Urberville who leaves her pregnant. Tess ends her
relationship with Alec and the child dies. A grief-stricken Tess finds work in
a nearby dairy farm where she encounters the cold and spiritual Angel Clare.
Tess and Angel marry and Tess reveals her past to Angel, who rejects Tess,
considering her a “fallen woman.” Tess leaves her husband and things get worse
from there.
Why it’s a favorite in Feminist
literature: The novel reveals the double standards that fall when women step
outside their role and embrace their passions and afterwards suffer from a
sullied reputation while many times men suffer no consequence whatsoever. Hardy
gives a character who at times acquiesces to this standard, but also is not afraid
to make her own decisions.
Tess embraces her passions
by falling into an affair with Alec and then into marriage with Angel. She then
ends her relationships with both men unwilling to compromise, particularly
after Angel rejects her. While he sees her as flawed, she sees him as flawed as
well in his unwillingness to accept her. While she makes a very wrong decision
in her final scene with Alec, the novel suggests that she is unwilling to take
being a pawn anymore and fights back in one of the few ways that a poor 19th
century woman can.
Favorite Quote: Tess (to Alec
D’Urberville clearly not buying his “conversion to Christianity” story): “Don’t
go on with it! I can’t believe in such sudden things! I feel indignant with you
for talking to me like this, when you know-when you know what harm you’ve done
to me! You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making
the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine
thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in
heaven by becoming converted! Out upon such-I don’t believe in you! I hate it!”
3. 
The Poems of Emily
Dickinson by Emily Dickinson (Various beginning in 1891 after Dickenson’s
death)
The plot: Well really not a plot since they are poems, but
Dickinson’s poems’ topics range from nature subjects like bees, birds, spiders,
flowers, trees, and the sky, to social subjects like marriage, sexuality,
spirituality, and death.
Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Dickinson was
known for her extreme shyness and solitude. She spent most of her life in her
home town of Amherst, Massachusetts. Only a few of her poems were published in
her lifetime. She had a reputation, which carries to this day of being an
agoraphobic spinster.
However, Dickinson’s deepest themes are revealed throughout
her poetry. Her writing features such themes as enjoying solitude, being an
outsider in a world of conformity, and finding spirituality within nature
rather than in the four walls of a church.
Favorite Quote:
“Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
‘Tis the majority
In this, as all prevails
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,-you’re straightway dangerous
And handled with a chain.”
2. 
Middlemarch by George Eliot (1871)
The plot: Various plots unfold in this tome. However,
Dorothea Brooke’s story is the main plot for this review. Dorothea, a well-educated
intellectual woman dreams of a life of meaning, so she marries Edward Casaubon,
an elderly academic. The marriage quickly becomes unhappy and Dorothea falls in
love with Will Ladislaw, Edward’s younger cousin. When he learns of the
affection the two share, a dying Casaubon changes his will so that Dorothea
loses her inheritance from him if she marries Ladislaw.
Why it’s a favorite in Feminist literature: Dorothea stands
out among the other female characters like the superficial Rosamond Vincy and
Dorothea’s conventional sister, Celia. She longs for a life of deep meaning,
intellectualism, and active service towards the poor, and is stifled by the
role women in her period have to fill as decorative pieces waiting for marriage.
She designs cottages for the people on her uncle’s estate
and she longs to discuss and analyze Casaubon’s Key to All Mythologies study.
While her marriage to Casaubon is obviously unwise to all but her, she is less
drawn to him physically than she is to someone who she believes understands her
mentally. Dorothea is simply a woman born in the wrong circumstances and the
wrong time period, and unlike her trail blazing author, lacked the stamina to
pursue her interests.
The other reason this book is a favorite for Feminism is
because of its author. Eliot, whose real name was Mary Ann Evans, chose to
write under a male name and pursue her academic interests and writing. Her
subjects were not specifically about marriage and romance, so much as they
discusses topics like religion, social issues, and class conflicts. Eliot
pursued an over 20 year affair with George Henry Lewes, a married editor. After
Lewes died in 1878, Eliot married a man 20 years her junior. While the
fictional Dorothea was unable to find happiness in her role as a woman, the
real Eliot was able to pursue her own happiness.
Favorite Quote: Narration (This sets up one of the main
themes to the book): “Here and there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of
nothing, whose loving heartbeats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble
off and are dispersed among hindrances, instead of centering in some
long-recognizable deed.”
1.
Jane Eyre by
Charlotte Bronte (1847)
The plot: Orphaned, Jane Eyre is
abused by her aunt and cousins then is sent to a cruel Dickensian school for
girls. After she grows up, she is offered a position as a governess to the ward
of the wealthy mysterious, Edward Fairfax Rochester. While she tutors
Rochester’s ward, Adele, and becomes fascinated by her employer, Jane hears
unusual laughter and encounters mysterious circumstances in the house. These
weird happenings threaten Jane’s happiness in the Rochester home and her and
Rochester’s growing affection for each other.
Why it’s a favorite in Feminist
literature: Jane is no wilting naïve Victorian heroine. Even as a child, she is
not afraid to stand up for herself. She fights back when her cousin, John Reed
bullies her and tells her cruel aunt, “I am glad you are no relation of mine.”
When she gains employment with Rochester, she is not afraid to call him out
when he manipulates her with a phony engagement even though she is in love with
him.
When she finds out that Rochester’s first wife
is imprisoned in the house, mad, Jane refuses Rochester’s offer to marry him or
live as his mistress. In all of her decisions, Jane displays a great deal of
self-sufficiency and strength that allows her to fight against her antagonists
even if they think of her as inferior because of her gender and her poverty.
Only when Jane is able to become Rochester’s equal, and in some ways his
superior, in the end does she accept his proposal.
I also highly recommend the novel,
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which
is the story of Bertha Rochester, Rochester’s first wife. She also has a
passionate independent spirit that allows her to stand up for herself against
antagonists like Rochester.
Favorite quote: Jane: “I tell you
I must go! Do you think that I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think
I am an automaton?-a machine without feelings? And can bear to have my morsel
of bread snatched from my lips, and my drops of my living water dashed from my
cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soul and
heartless? You think wrong!-I have as much soul as you, and full as much heart!
And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made
it as hard for you love leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not
talking to you through the modicum of custom, conventionalities, nor even of
mortal flesh: it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had
passed through the Grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal, as we are!”
Honorable Mention: The novels: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray, Madame Bovary by Gustave
Flaubert, Mill On the Floss by George
Eliot, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel
Hawthorne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
by Anne Bronte, Washington Square
by Henry James, Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett -Browning, Ruth Hall by Fanny Fern, and Leila by George Sand.
Non-fiction: A Vindication of the Rights of Women by
Mary Wollstonecraft (alright this one was from the 18th century
published in 1792, but it definitely is worth a mention), Eighty Years and More by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth’s
“Ain’t I A Woman” speech, Woman in the 19th
Century by Margaret Fuller, Incidents
in the Life of A Slave Girl by
Harriet Jacobs, Twenty Years at Hull
House by Jane Addams, and The
Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill.
Plays: A Doll’s House
and Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
Short Stories and
Poetry: Works by Mary Wilkens Freeman, Sarah Orne Jewitt, Rebecca Harding
Davis, Emma Lazaru,s, and Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
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