Every movement starts with a spark. A small flicker of light that briefly highlights the darkness. A brief moment that lingers in the minds it affected. Hope.
A Picture. A Song. A Book.
They fester in the minds of their observers and softly brew, until one day, they boil over.
A Picture. A Song. A Book.
They fester in the minds of their observers and softly brew, until one day, they boil over.
So what starts the spark?
The literary world is filled with strong heroines. Many of them ahead of their time. After all, it wasn’t until the 70s when the feminist movement came into effect with full force. There were many social aspects that contributed to the movement, World War II, political shifts, but it wasn’t as simple as that. The movement that was Feminism didn’t appear out thin air one day and suddenly become a hot topic issue. It brewed in the minds of young girls, women, mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers, until it had its time.
Literary works like A Doll’s House and The Yellow Wallpaper, both have themes of female independence at their cores, both have female leads, both were written in the 19th century; today they are considered the foundation for the feminist movement, influencing women of all ages and colors to rise up and claim equality.
Literary works like A Doll’s House and The Yellow Wallpaper, both have themes of female independence at their cores, both have female leads, both were written in the 19th century; today they are considered the foundation for the feminist movement, influencing women of all ages and colors to rise up and claim equality.
Nora from A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen, is one of these influences. For a majority of the play, Nora is a stereotypical women of her time. She is dependant on her husband, Torvald, and he dehumanizes her, often referring to her as a “little lark” (Ibsen, 1093). For a majority of the play the audience sees the dynamic of their unhealthy relationship play out. It isn’t until the end of Act III where we see a sudden shift in Nora’s perspective, on herself and her marriage. She claims she “[doesn’t] love [Torvald] any more” (Ibsen, 1152) and that “The way [she is] now, [she is] no wife to [him]” (Ibsen, 1153). She leaves Torvald and her children to find the “most wonderful” (Ibsen 1154), independence within herself.
Although Ibsen called this play a “humanist” (bachelorandmaster.com) piece rather than feminist, the themes of female independence are clear. The fact that he chose a woman to be the face of his humanity, especially for the time period, is a huge shift for gender roles in literature and theatre. To learn more about A Doll’s House relationship with feminism, click the button below to watch a Prezi going into more detail. |
Seattle Shakespeare Company's production of A Doll's House |
An visual representation of The Yellow Wallpaper. |
The short story The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has a feminist argument within its pages. The narrative is told journal style by a young woman who is suffering from a mental illness that has caused her husband, John, who is also her “physician, and perhaps… that is the one reason [she does] not get better faster” (Gilman, 1), to keep her in a room with yellow wallpaper, hoping it will improve her condition. Unfortunately, his treatment doesn’t help and the reader has a front row seat as his wife begins seeing a woman in the wallpaper, experiencing hysteria.
This piece was not a fabricated critique on social norms Gilman wrote, but rather an autobiographical story based on her own personal experience. The narrator of the story is possessed into insanity as a result of “‘rest-cure,’ a once frequently prescribed period of inactivity thought to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women” (lonestar.edu), is a reflection of Gilmans’ own experience with the treatment and a protest for women like herself who had suffered during ‘rest-cure.’ We know from this that Gilman intended it to be a feminist piece. She actually sent it to her doctor, Weir Mitchell, who "is said to have confessed to a friend that he had changed his treatment of hysterics after reading the story" (lonestar.edu), |
Without forward thinking authors like Ibsen and Gilman, the feminist movement would have been very different. It may have occurred later, with less force, or maybe not at all. Their characters provided an example of a woman breaking out of her role, and a woman crumbling beneath the pressure of one. Their works were both essential in igniting the feminist movement. They were the spark, lighting the way for generations who would fight for suffrage, equal pay, and equality in society.