Freedom and Women in American Realism

Extract

[...] Freedom and Women in American Realism Freedom is a prevalent theme in a lot of the American realism stories. However, in most of these stories, the focus is on a man's literal quest for freedom. Less common, but not infrequent, is the portrayal a woman struggling for that ideal. The woman's pursuit is more abstract than a man's. They strive for their personal freedoms. The women portrayed by American realist authors are enslaved by the patriarchy of the time in which they lived, their romantic relationships, and societal expectations. [...]

[...] Clarisse found her freedom in abstaining from sex with Aclee, while sex with Aclee is exactly what set Calixta free. The struggle for freedom portrayed by Gilman in Yellow Wall- Paper” is of a different nature, although, it does still include a relationship totally dominated by the man. Yellow Wall-Paper” leads us down a path of increasing mental instability during a woman's desperate attempt to be free. The narrator, and main character, suffers only from a mild case of depression at the beginning of the story. [...]

[...] She finally believes she has reached her freedom because she has “pulled off most of the paper, so you can't put [her] (844) Although she is even more trapped by her mental illness than at the beginning, she finally believes she is free. Her belief in freedom is just as important as her actually achieving it because her enslavement was mostly mental in the first place. The women in each story are searching for freedom in their lives; however the type of freedom each one finds is different. Mrs. Mallard, in Story of An is seeking [...]