NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS ON SHOWALTER'S 'A JURY OF HER PEERS' CH. 10
Jury of Her Peers is a book that traces the development of women’s literature in the United States. These notes are taken from the book as part of the Diverse Women Writers course at Salt Lake Community College. The title of the book is taken from a short story that involves a wife killing her husband.
Ch. 10 New Women “Spoke out against lynching and racism” (In the 1890s, lynching was as acceptable as racism?) “New woman” as a category Rise of the short story Pauline Hopkins – Wrote male quest romances from the perspective of a black woman (1890s) Of One Blood Utopia – “If a woman is dispossessed, a nobody, in the somewhere of patriarchy, it may be that she can only become somebody in the nowhere of Utopia.” Susan Gubar Utopian themes include sexual freedom and equality. Unveiling a Parallel takes place on Mars. Charlotte Perkins Gilman – postpartum depression Opted for the “West” cure, which involved vigorous activity. The other option was a rest cure, which meant that the woman didn’t do anything but rest all day. Wrote “The Yellow Wall-paper” (Notes on "The Yellow Wall-paper") (People go crazy because of lonely monotonous lives.) Gertrude Atherton didn’t like Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper.” “The American is individual will.” Henry James “abominated the woman [Atherton].” New Women and New Orleans – the convent and the brothel Grace King – partisan of the Lost Cause of the South Women in the South hold a degraded position. Kate Chopin – The Awakening explores the sexual journey of a woman. Alice Dunbar-Nelson – Creole, who was lost between white and black Sweeping Cobwebs – “In the end, marriage is about killing spiders everyday of your life.” “Androgynous children will be rescued from their social incarceration in sex roles and are set free to enter the topsy-turvy world of self-definition.” Edith Wharton’s Valley of Childish Things |
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