Unit One: Freedom – May 19, 2011 Response
Throughout their works, writers Anne Bradstreet, Washington Irving, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman depict the struggles of attaining social freedom: the personal liberation from slavery, detention, and oppression. However, social freedom once was, and to a degree still is, difficult to achieve when politics and social norms of the era disagree with the concept.
Bradstreet’s poems reflect her struggle for freedom from the pressures of being married to a renowned man in a Puritan society. In her poem, The Author to Her Book, Bradstreet uses a metaphor to describe her oppression. She writes, “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.” Bradstreet cannot please her husband and society because she never amounts to others’ expectations: the flawless, idealistic wife. Bradstreet is human and consequently makes mistakes and feels trapped under society’s expectations of perfection. However, in her other poem, Prologue, Bradstreet describes a slightly more positive outlook, as she has attains some sense of social freedom through writing poetry. She poetically describes how women, oppressed from their Puritan society, should technically not be allowed to write poetry (as it is intended only for men), yet here she is expressing herself in a reputable manner. She writes, “Let…Women what they are. Men have precedency and still excel; It is but vain unjustly to wage war.” This line shows Bradstreet’s recognition that men are, in society’s eyes, the superior sex, thus making herself inferior and unable to attain total freedom. However, this line also touches upon the fact that women are “what they are,” and should not have to amount to unreasonable expectations. Bradstreet expresses how she feels it is a waist of time to confront the precedence that men have over women, and instead she will express her feelings through poetry, and in doing that, in her own way, she feels some degree of liberation. In another poem, To My Dear and Loving Husband, Bradstreet defines her only answer to reach total freedom: death. Bradstreet writes, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever.” Bradstreet, in this life, loves her husband, but she feels that when her life ends, she “may live ever,” meaning she will actually ‘live her life’ by attaining social freedom and liberation from society’s oppression and her husband’s subjugation. Evidently, social freedom does not come easy for Bradstreet, as she writes about how she feels it is not worth the fight and instead, through expressing herself with poetry, she reaches a form of liberation that will aid her until the end of life. I was confused on the line that Bradstreet wrote in the poem To My Dear and Loving Husband. Do you think Bradstreet was indicating death as liberation, or some other message?
Bradstreet’s poems reflect her struggle for freedom from the pressures of being married to a renowned man in a Puritan society. In her poem, The Author to Her Book, Bradstreet uses a metaphor to describe her oppression. She writes, “I washed thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.” Bradstreet cannot please her husband and society because she never amounts to others’ expectations: the flawless, idealistic wife. Bradstreet is human and consequently makes mistakes and feels trapped under society’s expectations of perfection. However, in her other poem, Prologue, Bradstreet describes a slightly more positive outlook, as she has attains some sense of social freedom through writing poetry. She poetically describes how women, oppressed from their Puritan society, should technically not be allowed to write poetry (as it is intended only for men), yet here she is expressing herself in a reputable manner. She writes, “Let…Women what they are. Men have precedency and still excel; It is but vain unjustly to wage war.” This line shows Bradstreet’s recognition that men are, in society’s eyes, the superior sex, thus making herself inferior and unable to attain total freedom. However, this line also touches upon the fact that women are “what they are,” and should not have to amount to unreasonable expectations. Bradstreet expresses how she feels it is a waist of time to confront the precedence that men have over women, and instead she will express her feelings through poetry, and in doing that, in her own way, she feels some degree of liberation. In another poem, To My Dear and Loving Husband, Bradstreet defines her only answer to reach total freedom: death. Bradstreet writes, “Then while we live, in love let’s so persever, That when we live no more, we may live ever.” Bradstreet, in this life, loves her husband, but she feels that when her life ends, she “may live ever,” meaning she will actually ‘live her life’ by attaining social freedom and liberation from society’s oppression and her husband’s subjugation. Evidently, social freedom does not come easy for Bradstreet, as she writes about how she feels it is not worth the fight and instead, through expressing herself with poetry, she reaches a form of liberation that will aid her until the end of life. I was confused on the line that Bradstreet wrote in the poem To My Dear and Loving Husband. Do you think Bradstreet was indicating death as liberation, or some other message?
Another author, Irving, explores the idea of social freedom through the character of Rip Van Winkle, a lazy man with a violent wife trapped in an age where work ethic and motivation are a necessity to living. Rip finds it difficult to attain freedom, as he is constantly set back from freedom and bombarded by his angry wife with chores to do on the farm and family duties. However, after sleeping through the Revolutionary War, Rip fast forwards to an age and era where his carelessness is acceptable. He no longer is married to his oppressive wife, as he describes, “He had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony.” Rip’s newly achieved freedom parallels that of America’s. Instead of “the accustomed phlegm and drowsy tranquility” tone that encircled society during America’s oppression from England, there was “a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it” (19). Everyone now has their own, strong opinions from their newly gained freedom. Rip also feels this freedom. Now that he is elderly, his idle disposition is accepted in society and he is free to roam around and do nothing, contribute nothing. How else do you all feel that Rip’s experience paralleled the war?
Finally, another work that touches upon the ideas of social freedom is Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. Gilman describes a home with dreadful wallpaper that parallels her oppressed feelings from her husband. Gilman appears to have some sickness which prohibits her from building self-efficacy and importance. She feels trapped in her body and looking at the wallpaper seems to make her go increasingly insane…She describes the wallpaper, “When you follow the lame uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide…destroy themselves in unheard of contradictions.” Although she is describing how there are literal holes in the wallpaper, her mention of suicide is no mistake, and it seems as though Gilman is contemplating suicide as a means of freedom from her oppressed lifestyle. Later on, Gilman notices a “sub-pattern of a different shade” that “you can only see in certain lights.” The pattern resembles a trapped figure to parallel Gilman’s feelings. The main issue holding her back is her husband and her illness. She achieves some form of freedom in her life by going insane at the end and comparing her life to the wallpaper.
The theme of today’s stories reminds me of Water for Elephants when the main character, Jacob, finally reaches freedom from the great depression. After losing his parents, his graduate degree, his home, and essentially his whole life, he runs off to the circus and finds a new life. At first, he is oppressed by the circus leader, August, but at the end finally reaches freedom when August dies and he lives his life married to the woman he has been in love with since he joined the circus.
Okay, the final story was kind of confusing…how do you all feel Gilman reached liberation?
The theme of today’s stories reminds me of Water for Elephants when the main character, Jacob, finally reaches freedom from the great depression. After losing his parents, his graduate degree, his home, and essentially his whole life, he runs off to the circus and finds a new life. At first, he is oppressed by the circus leader, August, but at the end finally reaches freedom when August dies and he lives his life married to the woman he has been in love with since he joined the circus.
Okay, the final story was kind of confusing…how do you all feel Gilman reached liberation?
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